On Thursday, 11 January, the European Coordination Via Campesina called on the Council of the EU and the European Parliament to “suspend” their examination of the proposal governing the use of new genomic techniques (NGT).
According to this organisation, two major events have called into question the European Commission’s proposal:
- the publication of an opinion by the French Health and Food Safety Agency (ANSES)—which considers that the criteria for defining GMOs that should be excluded from all assessment, labelling, and traceability, known as NGT 1, “are not based on any scientific justification”—and
- the EU Council’s inability, at this stage, to reach a consensus on a compromise text on NGTs. The main stumbling block concerns the issue of patents, according to the European Coordination Via Campesina, which deems the EU Council and the European Parliament’s proposal aiming to ban the patentability of these GMOs to be impossible under current patent law.
Consequently, the European Coordination Via Campesina is calling on the European Parliament and the European Council to suspend their examination of the proposal while the patent issue is unresolved.
The Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU hopes that the EU Council will reach a general approach on the proposal regarding new genomic techniques (NGT). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)