“The European Union's approval system for agricultural biotechnology products continues to be broken,” says Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, executive vice president, Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). “It is plagued by political interference, undue delay and member prohibitions.
“There are now 70 products awaiting approvals — compared to 40 last year. There are no new cultivation approvals, in fact, France and Germany have imposed cultivation bans within the past two years. In addition, biotech corn is still not moving into the EU.
“The EU's non-functioning biotech approval process has blocked U.S. agricultural exports to the detriment of American farmers and agribusiness, but also has prevented European farmers from benefiting from modern technologies that are used in 25 countries by 13.3 million farmers around the world,” she says.