USDA/Foreigh Agricultural Service
GAIN Report

Twenty EU regions met in Florence on February 4 to sign to a charter proclaiming their right to declare themselves “GMO-free” regions. The organizers intend to work within the current EU legal framework to ban GM production in their regions. This could mark a shift in strategy precipitated by previous setbacks. In 2003, Upper Austria’s attempts to impose a ban on GM production met with failure the EU Commission ruled that Austria failed to provide sufficient scientific evidence to justify a ban. Likewise, the Commission has raised legal concerns with Germany’s new coexistence law. Josef Stockinger, Upper Austria’s agriculture minister and a founder of the regional network commented “…that in Berlin recently, Agriculture Commissioner Marianne Fischer-Boel recognized that there are insecurity and doubts related to the coexistence of crops. Without the intervention of the Commission, nothing serious can be done.”

The network of 20 GMO free regions is comprised of:

• Italy (Sardinia, Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Lazio, Bolzano);

• France (Aquitaine, Brittany, Ile-de-France, Poitou-Charentes, Limousin);

• Austria (Upper Austria, Salzburg, Steiermark, Burgenland);

• the United Kingdom (Wales, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland);

• Spain (the Basque area);

• Germany (Schleswig-Holstein), and

• Greece (Drama-Kavala-Xanthi).

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