Biotechnology Regulation in the European Union and France

Résumé du livre

In the early 1990s, France was at the forefront of agricultural biotechnology innovation and implementation. Yet, by the end of the decade, France had become one of the most vocal opponents among the European Union member states to genetically modified organisms and genetically modified food. France's continued resistance to implementing EU agricultural biotechnology legislation has created a regulatory impasse in this issue area. This study examines the triggering events that led to the reversal in the French position on GMOs, as well as explores the institutional development of the EU and French regulatory frameworks. Using a historical institutionalist approach, this work demonstrates that triggering events in the 1990s led to policy changes and institutional development in the fields of public health and food safety, both at the EU-level and within France. The main argument put forth in this dissertation is that the differences in the institutional evolution of the French regulatory framework for GMOs when compared to the evolution of the EU's regulatory framework has created the regulatory deadlock, which can be characterized as un dialogue des sourds between the EU and France. Furthermore, this impasse will continue to exist as long as the EU disregards the core concerns of anti-GMO sentiment in France.