ECJ condemns Commission for delaying release request

On September 29, 2013, the General Court of the European Union ruled that the Commission had failed to act on an application for the cultivation of GM maize 1507, which had already been submitted in July 2001 on the basis of the Deliberate Release Directive. The reason for this was that Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. had already brought an action for failure to act against the Commission in May 2007. The Commission had failed to submit a proposal for a decision on the approval of the maize to the Regulatory Committee for a vote. After the Commission had subsequently made this decision, the proceedings were initially discontinued. However, when the committee failed to reach an opinion in its decision-making process in 2009, the company again brought an action for failure to act against the Commission in April 2010. The Commission had failed to promptly submit a proposal for an approval decision to the Council. The General Court upheld this action in full in 2013. It stated that the Commission was not free to refuse to submit the authorisation proposal to the Council for a vote on which the Regulatory Committee had not delivered an opinion, in order to avoid an expected rejection by that body. Nor could it repeatedly request new scientific risk assessments from the relevant Scientific Committee of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) before continuing the decision-making process.
In order to comply with the decision of the General Court of the European Union and to end the prolonged inaction, the Commission submitted a decision to the Council on 6 November 2013 authorising maize 1507.
The proposal to the Council, submitted at the same time, to amend the Deliberate Release Directive to give Member States the right to decide on the cultivation of GMOs on a basis other than a scientific assessment of health and environmental risks carried out at EU level is currently still being negotiated.

This publication can also be found on the website of the law firm Dr. Kauch .