The draft EU Regulation that will establish a framework to encourage the market authorisation of new-generation genetically modified organisms (GMOs) - derived from the most recent new genomic techniques (NGTs) - is rekindling the fears of environmental NGOs ahead of its expected presentation on 5 July as part of a ‘Food and Biodiversity’ legislative package.
Fearing that the leaked draft will be adopted as is (see EUROPE 13203/14, 13000/6), Greenpeace and Beelife spoke out on Wednesday 28 June to warn of the potential risks to the environment - and in particular to biodiversity - of these GMOs obtained by mutagenesis or cisgenesis, which make it possible to modify the genetic make-up of plants even more profoundly and more rapidly than in conventional breeding (see EUROPE 13116/12).
At the heart of the concerns: a simplified authorisation procedure with a case-by-case risk assessment of GMOs considered equivalent to conventional plants (see EUROPE 13000/6). The Commission’s expected proposal is based on the opinion of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) (see EUROPE 13059/25, 13048/10).
“How can a plant made in a laboratory be the same as a conventional plant?”, asked Eva Corral from Greenpeace in a videoconference, not to mention the fact that “in conventional breeding, nature has time to adapt and does not when things are forced upon it”.
While acknowledging the possibilities offered by new genomic techniques, she warned against the lack of scientific data on “GMOs about which we know nothing”.
“A GMO is a GMO. It should be regulated as such”, she argued - as the Court of Justice of the EU ruled in 2018.
The NGOs criticise the draft text for making no mention of unintended adverse effects, which must be taken into account under Directive 2001/18/EC, the current framework for market authorisation of GMOs, which requires both an in-depth risk assessment and monitoring plans.
What’s more, the leaked draft makes no mention of the 2016 IPBES report, which identified genetically modified plants as potential causes of pollinator decline and recommended further study of potential causes of pollinator decline, lamented Beelife scientist Nora Simon. Research on this subject will be published by the NGO in the autumn.
In the opinion of Helmut Burtscher-Schaden, spokesman for the European citizens’ initiative ‘Save bees and farmers’, “genetic material from old GMOs pollutes areas far from where the plants are grown, and pollinators even contribute to this dissemination. The scant data available revealed that the old GMOs presented unexpected dangers for the environment”.
Several Member States have already called for the precautionary principle to be applied (see EUROPE 13144/5). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)