GREENPEACE WELCOMES EUROPEAN COURT RULING ON CONTROVERSIAL GE MAIZE

21 March 2000

LUXEMBOURG -- Greenpeace welcomed today's decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and expects the French Conseil d’Ètat to maintain the ban on Novartis genetically engineered (GE) maize. According to the ECJ, a national court can identify irregularities in an original approval process of a genetically engineered organism (GMO) which is the first step to an EU-wide approval. However, only the ECJ can rule on the legality of the national and EU-wide approval.

"Since the French Conseil d’État recognised that the precautionary principle was not applied in the approval of Novartis GE maize, we expect the ECJ to ban the crop and declare the French approval illegal", said Arnaud Apoteker of Greenpeace.

The ECJ passed its decision today on the approval process for Novartis’ genetically engineered maize (Novartis Bt 176) in France and in Europe. The French administrational court Conseil d’Etat revoked the growing approval in France in December 1998 after Greenpeace challenged the French approval on the grounds that neither environmental nor health risks were properly taken into account in the original approval process. The Conseil then asked the ECJ to give its legal opinion on whether a member state could reject the European Commission’s recommendation on a GE crop.

Greenpeace urges the French as well as other European governments to follow the so-called Article 16 procedure of the directive 90/220 and ban the GE maize immediately. Since 1996 new evidence on its risks to for example butterflies and other insects and for soil organisms has been presented. So far Austria, Luxembourg and Germany have done this.

"In the EU the crop was originally approved with the support of France and the EU Commission alone, against the will of 13 Member States," said Apoteker. "This undemocratic process was one of the reasons EU Environment Ministers enacted a de facto moratorium on all further GMO approvals in 1999. This kind of approval will no longer be possible under a revised Directive 90/220 that will be voted on by the European Parliament next month."

Novartis’ GE maize is engineered to produce a toxin that kills insect larvae and to be tolerant to the herbicide glufosinate ammonium. It also contains an antibiotic resistance gene. Austria, Luxembourg, Germany and Norway have banned it.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

- Arnaud Apoteker, Greenpeace France GE campaigner, mobile +33 6 07573160
- Isabelle Meister Greenpeace GE campaigner + 41 1 447 4195
- Mika Railo, Greenpeace International Press Desk, Amsterdam, +31 20 5249 548

Follow Greenpeace's GE campaign on the web: www.greenpeace.org/~geneng/gehome.htm