BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics, Policy & Law

Corn anarchy

January 12, 1998 8:00 AM UTC

OXFORD - Europe continues to procrastinate over the bans on imports of genetically modified maize imposed by the governments of Austria and Luxembourg. The European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, says it believes that there is no scientific justification for the bans, but neither nation is obliged to repeal the bans until ordered to do so after a vote by all the EU member states. National experts, meeting in Brussels on Friday, decided to put off a vote until March. This is the second time they have postponed the decision, which was first put to them last November.

Pressing ahead on its own account, Pioneer Saaten GesmbH (Parndorf, Austria), the Austrian arm of the seed giant Pioneer Hi-Bred International (Des Moines, Iowa), has decided to take Austria's consumer protection minister head on by applying to conduct field trials of a modified maize at 10 sites within the country...