On Friday 21 February, the Polish presidency of the EU Council said that it had obtained sufficient support from Member States for its latest compromise proposal on rules governing the use of new genomic techniques (NGTs) to end technical discussions and escalate the issue to a political level.
The EU Council has still not managed to find a common position on this sensitive issue. The latest compromise proposal (the third since the beginning of the year), discussed on 21 February in the Council working group, makes a number of technical changes to the previous proposal, without altering the overall balance (see EUROPE 13576/6).
The proposed text of the regulation specifies the content of the guidelines to be published by the European Commission to help market players navigate the patent landscape, describing the opportunities offered by new genetic engineering methods and how they can benefit from them.
In addition, information regarding the status of ‘NGT 1’ plants would no longer only be given on seeds, but also in marketing documents (but not on labels visible to consumers). Category 1 includes NGT plants considered equivalent to conventional plants, which would therefore be exempt from the requirements of GMO legislation.
According to several delegations, the opt-out mechanism (a measure prohibiting a Category 1 NGT plant at national level) proposed by Poland would not be suitable for addressing the issues related to patents.
The Polish presidency’s compromise text could be examined by the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) in mid-March (the date of 12 March has been mentioned).
In the event of a qualified majority in the Council on a common position, the Polish presidency would then have a mandate to begin negotiations with the European Parliament, which adopted its position a year ago (on 7 February 2024, to be exact). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)