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France and Germany plan to expand ban of GM Crops

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Austria and Italy fully ban GM crops with EU opt-out

France and Germany recently plan to use a new European opt-out scheme to ensure a ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops in the country remains in place.

As part of the opt-out process, France also passed legislation in the National Assembly to oppose the cultivation of GM crops, even if approved at EU level, on the basis of certain criteria including environment and farm policy, land use, economic impact or civil order, the environment ministry added.

The EU opt-out, agreed in March, allows individual countries to seek exclusion from any approval request for GM cultivation in the 28-member bloc or varieties already cleared as safe by the EU.

Widely grown in the Americas and Asia, GM crops have divided opinion in Europe. France had already banned cultivation of U.S. group Monsanto's GM maize.

Monsanto's MON810 maize is the only GM crop grown in Europe, where it has been cultivated in Spain and Portugal for a decade, but other maize crops are in the process of being approved at EU level.