Legal action over GMO bans unlikely this year

Date: 30/07/1998

By Simon Coss

AUSTRIA looks set to avoid being dragged through the European Court of Justice during its six-month EU presidency over its continued ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops.

Experts at the European Commission have conceded that, for administrative reasons, it will not be possible to begin legal proceedings against Austria and Luxembourg, which has imposed a similar ban on crops containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs), before next year.

The Commission has argued for more than a year that the two bans contravene single market rules as they prevent the sale and cultivation of crops which have been approved for Union-wide use.

However, the institution has so far taken no action because EU rules say that Union governments must first try to resolve the issue.

To date, member states have made no progress whatsoever. They have repeatedly failed to muster the required number of votes in meetings of various scientific committees to take any action, and hopes that EU environment ministers would break the deadlock when they met in Luxembourg last month were dashed.

The only thing agreed at the Luxembourg meeting was that governments would give themselves until 11 September to reach a decision.

Council of Ministers insiders now concede that they will simply agree to take no action.

"They are going to let the deadline go because difficulties still exist," said one official. "What is likely to happen is that there will be no decision by the Council and they will pass it back to the Commission."

Officials say that the repeated delays mean it will not be possible to begin legal proceedings against Austria and Luxembourg during Vienna's stint at the EU helm, which lasts until the end of December.

The Commission cannot do anything at all until after the September deadline as it must wait for formal clearance from EU governments to take action on the issue.

Once officials have received the go-ahead, they could send letters to Vienna and Luxembourg asking them to explain why the bans were still in force. Experts say this process could take anything between two weeks and a month.

The Commission would then have to analyse the replies and give the two countries time to adjust their national legislation, a procedure likely to take several more weeks.

If, after this time, Austria and Luxembourg had still not repealed the bans, the institution would send further letters warning of legal action.

It would then have to wait some six to eight weeks for replies before finally launching court proceedings.

"I don't think we will be physically able to do all of this before the end of the year," said one Commission insider.