REUTERSJune 5, 2008
BRUSSELS, June 5 (Reuters) - France should pay a daily fine of more than 230,000 euros ($354,900) until it updates its laws on genetically modified (GM) crops and foods, an adviser to the European Union's highest court said on Thursday.

In an opinion given to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), Advocate General Jan Mazak said Paris had failed to comply with a 2004 ruling that its statute book did not properly integrate an EU directive on releasing GM organisms into the environment.

"I propose that the court should declare that, by failing to take all the measures necessary to comply with the judgment of the court of 15 July 2004 ... the French Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations," Mazak's opinion said.

The daily fine should be set at 235,764 euros, it said.
In the latest ECJ case, the European Commission -- the EU's executive arm charged with implementing and administering EU law on behalf of the bloc's 27 member countries -- said it believed France had only partially complied with its EU obligations.

The opinions of the ECJ's advocates general are upheld by the full court in a majority of cases.
The directive, agreed by EU governments in 2001, regulates how GM crops may be grown and approved across the bloc. It ranks as the EU's main law, of around five, on biotech crops.

It covers the cultivation of GM seeds for crop or seed production and also includes imports of GM products and their processing for industrial purposes.

EU governments had a deadline of October 2002 to revise their national legislation to include the law, known as the Deliberate Release directive.

(Reporting by Jeremy Smith; editing by Christopher Johnson)
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