On Tuesday 10 December, the EU agriculture ministers confirmed their differences over the proposal to regulate the use of new genomic techniques (NGTs). Ministers from several countries (France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, etc.) were said to have expressed hope that the Polish Presidency of the EU Council will succeed in bringing the EU Council to a common position on NGTs over the next six months.
The Hungarian Presidency, which did not really want to bring the EU Council to a common position on this sensitive issue, wished the next Presidency good luck in finalising the work on NGTs (see EUROPE 13540/13).
An agreement seems possible under the Polish Presidency of the EU Council, if it decides to put the subject on the EU Council’s agenda. In this scenario, Poland would no longer be able to oppose the text. In this way, a qualified majority in the EU Council could be achieved, bearing in mind that a compromise was close to being reached during the latest negotiations under the Belgian and Spanish Presidencies of the EU Council.
During the EU ‘Agriculture’ Council, neither Germany nor Poland intervened.
Ministers from 15 countries (Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Italy, Denmark, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Finland, Sweden, Malta, Cyprus, France, Lithuania, Ireland, Estonia) supported the Commission’s proposal and/or the compromise text of February 2024.
On the other hand, six delegations (Austria, Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia) expressed more or less strong reservations about the proposal (need for clear labelling, precautionary principle, exclusion from organic farming, problem of patentability of plants derived from NGTs). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)