Home › Europe tells France to scrap GM ban
France - European Union - 
Article published the Friday 09 September 2011 - Latest update : Friday 09 September 2011

Europe tells France to scrap GM ban

Genetically modified maize
Getty Images/Digital Vision/Lawrence Lawry

By Clea Caulcutt

Europe's highest court on Thursday ruled that France acted illegally when it imposed a ban on the cultivation of genetically modified maize in 2008.

French authorities imposed a moratorium on GM crops developed by US biotech giant Monsanto after vocal opposition to the "Frankenfoods" by environmental campaigners.

The European Court of Justice said France did have the right to impose a moratorium but based it on the wrong EU legislation.

France reacted to the ruling by declaring that its embargo on Monsanto corn was still valid and it would restart the procedure if needed.

Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet defended the ban, saying that “there have still not been any answers to the environmental questions”.

tags: Agriculture - Ecology - Farming - France - UMP
Related articles
Comments
React to this article
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters (without spaces) shown in the image.
Close