The European Court of Justice confirmed that statutory GMO-free regions are illegal. The Court dismissed the appeals of Upper Austria and the Austrian Government against their ban on the use of biotech crops in the region of Upper Austria.

"This is great news for farmers, for the scientific based risk assessment of the EFSA and for the EU biotech regulatory framework which the Member States put in place. Industry now calls on the region of Upper Austria to drop its illegal and unscientific opposition to approved biotech crops and allow Austrian farmers the choice to grow GMOs if they so wish." said Johan Vanhemelrijck, Secretary General EuropaBio - the EU association for bioindustries. "Attempts to create so-called "GMO-free regions" should be seen for what they are: a denial of the freedom of choice for farmers and consumers."

The Judgement says that practices like organic agriculture and small scale farming cannot be used as an argument to ban cultivation of approved biotech crops. Both the Commission and the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mariann Fischer Boel have stated in the past that "farmers should be able to produce in a traditional way, be it conventional or organic, according to the high quality and safety standards in the EU. And they should as well have the choice to produce GM-crops, if they see advantages in doing so and find a market for them."

Farmers can take official action against their region if it tries to stop them from cultivating EU approved biotech crops, while freedom of choice guarantees that individual or groups of farmers are free to cultivate conventional, organic or biotech crops. This decision confirms that it is illegal for regional or national governments to impose bans and deprive individual farmers of the choice to grow biotech crops which have been approved for commercial cultivation in the EU.