The proposal to regulate plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs) and food and feed containing such plants is far from meeting with unanimous approval in the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee (see EUROPE 13243/4).
On the procedural side, the EPP, Renew Europe and ECR groups want to move quickly to enable the European Parliament Environment Committee, which is responsible for the substance, to adopt its report prepared by Jessica Polfjärd (EPP, Swedish) on 11 January 2024. The Greens/EFA and The Left groups see no reason to speed up the procedure on a text which, in their view, opens the door to new GMOs.
The draft report by Ms Polfjärd (https://aeur.eu/f/9ah ) takes up many of the concerns expressed by the majority of the members of the European Parliament Agriculture Committee.
Veronika Vrecionová (ECR, Czech), rapporteur of the opinion on this text in the European Parliament Agriculture Committee, took the view, unlike the MEPs in the Greens/EFA Group, that NGTs cannot be equated with GMOs. “To say that they are the same thing is not true”, she said, asserting that the scientific community thought as she did.
For Benoît Biteau (Greens/EFA, French), there is a risk of genetic pollution affecting seed varieties. In his view, there is no evidence that NGTs reduce the use of pesticides. “We must not speed up the timetable” for adoption of the opinion by the European Parliament Agriculture Committee, he insisted.
Patent and bio. On the substance, Ms Vrecionová felt that the text of the proposal was “quite good”, but that some changes needed to be made. In her view, Annex 1 (equivalence criteria between NGT plants and conventional plants) should be adapted with regard to the maximum of 20 genetic modifications, to focus on quality-related modifications. Daniel Buda (EPP, Romanian), in particular, supported this request.
Juozas Olekas (S&D, Lithuanian) felt that NGTs could make it possible to produce plants that are more resistant to climate change, while raising questions about Annex 1 (20 genetic modifications) and intellectual property.
Several MEPs, including Isabel Carvalhais (S&D, Portuguese), Veronika Vrecionová, Mr Buda and Mr Biteau, raised the issue of patents on NGTs, given the risk that only two seed companies could acquire a monopoly on their sale. They also regretted that organic farming cannot use NGTs. “I prefer organic farmers to decide for themselves”, said Ms Vrecionová, who is against the ban.
NGOs opposed. On Thursday, the NGOs ‘Friends of the Earth Europe’ and Slow Food warned of the serious risks posed by the proposal to the right to transparency of consumers, farmers and breeders, and to the protection of nature.
According to these NGOs, the proposal suggests excluding new GMO plants such as products derived from CRISPR-Cas9 (cutting DNA at a precise point in the genome) from the current GMO legal framework, “which would exempt them from labelling requirements as well as safety controls and traceability processes”. In addition, it would prevent the whole supply chain and consumers from deliberately opting for GMO-free choices, “which would undermine their right to transparency and information about the food they buy”.
At the request of the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), the law firm Artemisia has analysed the Commission’s proposal. According to the legal analysis (https://aeur.eu/f/9ad ), the proposal will reduce the level of consumer protection by depriving consumers of any form of safety assessment and information on what they will eat in the future. There will be no risk assessment or consumer labelling for most NGT products. This is contrary to Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, according to this analysis. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)