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More unlawful GM authorisations likely, warn Friends of the Earth

A ruling from the European Court of Justice today has annulled the decision to authorise the genetically modified potato Amflora from the company BASF because the European Commission "significantly failed to fulfil its procedural obligations". [1]

Commenting on the ruling Mute Schimpf, food campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe said: "Friends of the Earth Europe welcomes the decision by the European Court of Justice to annul the decision to allow the genetically modified potato Amflora to be grown in Europe. We congratulate the Hungarian government for taking this legal action and other countries for supporting this legal challenge.

"The European Commission has been caught red-handed breaking the law to force the planting of GM crops in Europe. The Commission must learn from this ruling and stop supporting these unwanted and not needed crops with such enthusiasm It is time to put the environment and people before commercial interests.

"The Commission is currently considering the authortisation of a new genetically modified maize which even its own scientific advisors says may harm butterflies and moths. It risks repeating the same mistake and opening itself to another legal challenge unless it immediately halts this process and reject this toxic maize."

The Commission has published a proposal to grow a GM maize called 1507. The maize, owned by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, represents a generation of highly toxic crops, according to Friends of the Earth Europe. It produces an insecticide that is deadly to butterflies and has unknown impacts on bees and other pollinators. The insecticide produced is 350 times more toxic than that produced by Monsanto's MON810 maize – the only other GM crop commercialised in the EU. As with the Amflora potato, the European Commission has not consulted national experts about the potential risks.

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Notes:

[1] http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2013-12/cp130160en.pdf