GM directive deficiencies in the European Union

Abstract

The European Union (EU) is currently not the most welcoming place for genetically modified (GM) crops. In 2001, the EU agreed on a directive to regulate the approval process for the cultivation and use of GM crops in the member states—but seven years later, no crop has been approved under the agreed legislation. In fact, the only commercial GM crop that has been approved for environmental release in the EU is an insect‐resistant maize variety developed by Monsanto (St Louis, MO, USA). Although it was approved before the EU's 2001 directive came into effect, various member states are still refusing to allow it to be grown. The regulatory reluctance of the EU to approve GM crops has brought it into conflict with the USA and others through a World Trade Organization (WTO; Geneva, Switzerland) trade dispute case in which the EU is accused of trade protectionism. The disagreement took another turn in November 2007 when Stavros Dimas, the European Commissioner for the Environment, announced that applications by Syngenta (Basel, Switzerland) and Pioneer Hi‐Bred International (Johnston, IA, USA), to grow two insect‐ and herbicide‐resistant transgenic strains of maize, should be rejected on the basis of environmental concerns. Yet, Dimas's decision disregarded earlier science‐based evaluations by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA; Parma, Italy), which found that both varieties would not have “an adverse effect on human and animal health or the environment”. The EFSA's report was delivered to the European Commission in April 2005, and updated in November 2006. Although the Commission was required to make a decision within three months of receiving the EFSA's report, it took nearly a year until it finally issued a draft decision stating that neither crop should be approved for cultivation. The decision referred to 11 papers that cast doubt on the crops' environmental safety …