France: French implementation of European Court of Justice ruling jeopardizes exports of rapeseed to France
In May 2020 France notified the European Commission of its intention to delist in-vitro random mutagenesis with chemical or physical agents to comply with French Council of State’s February 2020 ruling. That ruling was based on the European Court of Justice (ECJ) 2018 decision on New Breeding Techniques (NBTs). This decision will ban Clearfield herbicide resistant varieties of rapeseed for use, disallowing these varieties of rapeseed and requiring a zero-tolerance for any contamination from these varieties. It will negatively impact rapeseed and seed exports from Canada, other EU countries and South America to France. If France determines additional measures are needed to implement the ECJ decision, U.S. agricultural exports for products developed using NBTs could be negatively impacted as well.
