The EU is to set to release a new class of genetically modified crops from strict regulation that dates back over 20 years, but MEPs and governments are divided over whether biotech firms should be allowed to patent them.
The EU has moved a step closer to lifting controls on some genetically modified crops after diplomats in Brussels gave the green light on Friday for final talks with the European Parliament, which has already backed a proposal to split them into two categories.
Laboratory techniques developed since the EU put in place its current GMO regulations two decades ago mean new properties can now be conferred by precisely editing a plant’s genome, rather than inserting whole genes from another species.
Under the incoming rules, the products of new genomic techniques like the Nobel Prize-winning CRISPR-Cas9 ‘genetic scissors’ will be placed in a lower ‘category 1’ and exempted from strict risk assessment and labelling requirements.
They would also be removed from an opt-out that has allowed most EU governments to ban – often with broad public support – the commercial cultivation of all GM crops in their countries.
Governments have agreed that products of the more modern genetic engineering techniques should not have to be marked as such on supermarket shelves, although seeds would still have to be labelled to allow organic farmers to avoid them.
‘Innovation friendly’
Backers of GM crops, notably powerful agricultural technology and chemicals companies and the intensive farming lobby, argue that such targeted mutations could occur spontaneously or through conventional breeding, so there is no need for any special treatment.
Euroseeds, a trade association whose members include European agro-tech giants like Bayer, Syngenta and Cortiva, welcomed the EU Council’s agreement and called on MEPs and governments to agree an “innovation friendly” legal text in upcoming final talks.
“This means treating conventional-like NGT plants and products similar to conventional breeding without discriminatory labelling or traceability requirements,” secretary general Garlich von Essen said.
But opponents of the deregulatory move argue that even small tweaks to a plant’s genetic code could create unpredictable risks that would be all but impossible to contain once the new breed is in the wild.
‘A dark day’
Mute Schimpf, who leads food campaigning at Friends of the Earth Europe said the intergovernmental deal marked “a dark day for consumers, farmers and the environment”.
“EU governments have voted on the side of a handful of big corporations’ profits, instead of protecting farmers and consumers’ right to transparency and safety,” Schimpf said.
The German GMO watchdog Testbiotech pointed out that as well as waiving risk assessment and traceability, governments in the EU Council had also agreed to allow the patenting of all GM plants, even those derived from most wild species.
“New developments such as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and new possibilities for more risky changes of plant characteristics are not taken into account,” the NGO added.
The new regulation will now be discussed behind closed doors by MEPs, government delegates and the European Commission. A likely sticking point is the parliament’s call, in a negotiating mandate adopted a year ago, for a total ban on patenting of new-generation GMOs in order to avoid large farms creating monopolies.
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