Directive action required

摘要

It took many years of acrimonious debate for the European Union (EU) to agree a directive regulating the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops. In many member countries, the public was ready to accept genetic technologies in the service of medicine but not, as they saw it, in the service of the agricultural industry. That industry, aggressively in favour of GM crops, continues to be powerful and influential. European publics remain strongly opposed.