Europe's GMO compromise: bound to unravel?

http://www.dw.com/en/europes-gmo-compromise-bound-to-unravel/a-18477896

Six months after a European Union compromise allowing member states to decide themselves whether or not to grow genetically modified crops, half the bloc's members has announced plans to ban them. How will this play out?

Europe's GMO compromise: bound to unravel?
Dave Keating, Brussels
02.10.2015

By an October 3 deadline, more than half of European Union countries have notified the European Commission that they intend to ban farming of genetically modified (GM) crops.

The bans apply not only to the sole GM crop currently approved for cultivation in Europe - Monsanto's pesticide-producing GM corn - but also to seven varieties of GM maize all currently awaiting approval by the commission.

Earlier in 2015, after years of squabbling, the EU's 28 member states had finally reached a compromise allowing each member state to make its own decision on GM crop cultivation.

But even as individual nations seek to ban genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, legal analysts say such bans may stand up in court. Meanwhile, campaigners against GMOs fear the new legislation may open the way for GM crops to flood into Europe - which has remained largely GMO-free.