A "potentially horrific" proposed EU law to ban an expandable list of invasive species has provoked dismay among horticultural experts.
The plan, due to be voted on by the EU next month, would see a list of banned species "of EU concern" that could not be introduced, transported, put on the market, offered, kept, grown or released in the environment.
But when the added measures of an imported plant levy and a year quarantine for imported trees were suggested at recent Government Environmental Audit Committee meetings, the industry was spooked.
HTA horticulture head Raoul Curtis Machin said: "It's potentially very serious. What blindsided us was the question about potential levies. We'd been looking at banned lists but when that question came out it was spooky. Sometimes that's their way of testing potential policy. But it's potentially horrific for the industry."
The RHS is also concerned and said it favours a "blacklist" approach that "would see plants that present a clear environmental threat being restricted". Originally the EU law limited the banned list to 50, but this was changed to a an unlimited number.
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