November 17, 2014
EC urged to approve new plan allowing members to ban GE crops before 2015 harvest
Germany has urged the European Commission to allow individual country members of the European Union to ban genetically modified crops as early as before the 2015 harvest for "social-economic reasons."
Earlier this month, the European Parliament's environment committee endorsed a new plan allowing countries in the EU to ban GM crops even if they are approved for cultivation in the EU.
A Reuters report said German farm minister Christian Schmidt told a news conference late last week that "social-economic reasons" should be considered in allowing an EU country to ban GM crops even if they have been approved as safe by the bloc.
Schmidt said a final decision on national bans made now would apply to next year's harvest. "That means 1507 should not make it to the sowing, certainly not in Germany," he said, referring to GM maize Pioneer 1507 developed by US firms DuPont and Dow Chemical, whose approval by the EU is still pending.
EU authorities have so far approved only two GM crops for commercial cultivation, with one of them later blocked by a court, leaving Monsanto's GM maize MON810 as the only GM crop grown in Europe. MON810 has been cultivated in Spain and Portugal for the past decade.
Once the plan endorsed at the committee level receives the final nod of the European Parliament and member states, it is expected to become a law by 2015.