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EU Blocks France's Ban of Monsanto's GM Maize

Posted by Soulskill on from the renamed-to-freedom-corn dept.

redletterdave writes with an update to news from a few months ago that France had banned the growing of Monsanto's genetically modified corn. After reviewing the evidence France submitted in support of the ban, the European Food Safety Authority has now rejected it. An official opinion (PDF) stated that they "could not identify any new science-based evidence indicating that maize MON 810 cultivation in the EU poses a significant and imminent risk to the human and animal health or the environment."

3 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. If I were french I'd be mad by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not because the EU overturned the ban, but because the EU can overrule national decisions in such important matters, and a vast majority of other matters in almost all aspects of life.

    French authorities may or may not be right about not trusting Monsanto's GMOs, I am not qualified to have an opinion on the subject, but what I see here is that, in effect, they only have a consulting role since a another body in Brussels disagreed and decided otherwise. That's what you get when you relinquish your national sovereignty to a half-assed de-facto federal government that doesn't speak its name.

    It's the same for the ability to lower certain taxes, doing protectionism, devaluing the currency they no longer have control of, and a whole slew of important and less important things that define an independent nation. EU member states don't have any real say over these things anymore. That's why I'm amazed to see people in the streets of France celebrate the election of their new prez, hoping for a brighter future with him, when in reality he's just a figurehead with almost no power to do anything meaningful.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  2. I agree. It is pretty nasty already, by bdwoolman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    but it could get worse: See The Windup Girl

    --
    "No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
  3. Re:If one group of people NEEDS an assassination by captainpanic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Even though it's a pure flame against Monsanto, I would mod this up if I had any points.

    You're right. Monsanto make life itself a business, and they do not seem to care at all how they make a profit. Where Google's motto is "Don't be evil", it seems Monsanto has the opposite motto: "Be evil". Kill small business. Own life. Then extort it for profit. If you own the food market, you own the world.

    I cannot understand why anyone with a functioning brain would look for a job at Monsanto.