Biotech-Planting Flexibility Backed by EU Parliament Committee

A European Union plan to let individual EU countries ban the cultivation of genetically modified crops won support from an environmental panel, setting up a potential clash with governments that oppose the step.

The European Parliament’s environment committee endorsed a draft law that would give national governments an opt-out from rules making the EU a single market for goods. The aim is to accelerate approvals at EU level of applications to plant gene-modified seeds made by companies such as Monsanto Co.