On Wednesday 30 August, some members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture, including Peter Jahr (EPP, German) and Ulrike Müller (Renew Europe, German), expressed doubts about the new sustainability criteria set out in the proposal on plant reproductive material.
The European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture has debated the European Commission’s proposal of 5 July to review the rules on plant reproductive material (see EUROPE 13230/7).
MEPs generally welcomed the aims of the text, while pointing to the constraints on businesses arising from the new sustainability criteria.
The European Commission representative explained that these “non-ideological” sustainability criteria would apply to cereals as well as fruit and vegetables.
The methodology for all species does not yet exist, the Commission stressed. Member States will be able to adopt protocols on their territory, which will have to be notified to the Commission and the other Member States. The Commission will then develop “general concepts” for seed sustainability. There will therefore be no detailed rules for each species or region.
As far as heterogeneous material for seeds is concerned, the Commission has only used what has been introduced for organic heterogeneous material, which should ensure that quality is maintained.
The Commission will act through implementing acts on highly technical subjects, such as purity, germination percentage or distance between fields, with a vote by the EU Member States within the committee.
The Commission representative made a clear distinction between the text on seeds and that on new genomic techniques. Legislation on GMOs and new genomic techniques will be the starting point. For example, if labelling is provided for, it will be included under the text on plant reproductive material.
Finally, the Commission indicated that patents were not affected by the texts on NBT and seeds. The text on seeds only concerns the marketing and authorisation of material and not intellectual property rights, the institution insisted. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)