Gm Crops: Denmark fails to win EU majority

BRUSSELS: Environment ministers from the EU met in Brussels to debate a Danish compromise designed to break a deadlock in approvals for genetically modified (GM) crop, but governments failed to agree  to a proposition to let them individually decide whether to grow or ban GM plants. “There were some countries saying that the time is not right for Europe right now, that Europe wasn’t ready,” Danish Environment Minister Ida Auken said after the meeting. The Danish compromise plan proposed companies seeking EU approval to cultivate a GM crop to not market the product in countries that do not want to grow it, in return for approval to grow the crops in others. The proposition was overruled due to rules requiring uniformity in law among member countries.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2012.