Fewer environmental tests and no mandatory labeling in supermarkets: The EU wants to relax its rules for handling certain genetically modified products. Representatives from the European Parliament and the Council of the 27 EU countries reached an agreement on this in the early hours of Thursday. Critics were unable to prevail with their consumer protection and patent law concerns.
What’s it all about?
The EU wants to significantly relax regulations for the use of so-called New Genomic Techniques (NGT) and introduce two categories for genetically modified plants. The first category will include varieties with limited genetic modifications, such as those achieved with the CRISPR-Cas gene-editing tool. Stricter regulations will continue to apply to plants with more extensive genetic modifications.
Genetic engineering could be used much more frequently in the development of new varieties. Proponents hope for new plants that can adapt better to climate change, require less water, or are more resistant to disease. They argue that the interventions merely accelerate conventional breeding.
What will change in the supermarket?
Food products will no longer carry a label if they contain genetically modified plants from the first category: Only the seeds will be labeled.
What are the environmental impacts?
Currently, genetically modified varieties must undergo extensive testing for potential environmental risks before approval. Such risk assessments will be eliminated after the reform. However, genetically modified varieties will still be prohibited in organic farming.
However, there may no longer be so-called documentation requirements for plants in the first category: Currently, the entire supply chain must be traceable, and it must be documented which farmer sowed the varieties on which fields. Without the documentation requirements, the new varieties could also reach fields of farms that do not use genetic engineering themselves, for example by the wind, without the farms noticing.
What about patent law?
The EU wants to allow patents on new varieties and technologies. The compromise proposes a public database where all patents on genetic engineering methods and seeds will be registered. This is intended to reduce the risk for seed producers of unintentionally infringing on patents and facing legal proceedings.
Several EU countries and Members of the European Parliament expressed concerns during the negotiations because the patent situation was unclear. The fear was that large agricultural corporations could secure patents, leaving medium-sized seed producers empty-handed. However, the critics were unsuccessful.
What happens next?
The European Parliament and the 27 EU member states still need to adopt the compromise. The Council of Member States was able to secure most of its demands during the negotiations, so a majority is considered virtually guaranteed.
However, the European Parliament made far-reaching concessions. This is partly due to the fact that the mandate for the negotiations dated back to the previous legislative period and was partly approved by a center-left majority that no longer holds sufficient votes in the current parliament.
Members of the Green Party and the Social Democrats therefore accused the lead negotiator—the conservative Swede Jessica Polfjärd—of abandoning the mandate. Such concessions, they argued, could be supported by a majority including the far-right factions in parliament.
AFP – Translated by Blackout News