In July this year, the European Commission published its proposals for regulating plants developed using new genomic techniques (NGTs) such as CRISPR gene editing.This followed a report published by the Commission in April 2021, reviewing the impacts of a July 2018 ruling by the European Court of Justice that all NGT plants should be regulated in the EU as genetically modified organisms (GMOs).The Commission’s review determined that the EU’s 20-year-old regulatory framework for GMOs was not fit-for-purpose to deal with more recent breeding technologies such as gene editing. It also advised that regulatory reform for NGTs was needed to support EU agriculture’s response to urgent climate, food security and environmental challenges. Central to the EU’s deregulatory plan is the re-classification of NGTs into two distinct product groups. Category 1 products, which could have occurred in nature or through conventional breeding, will be exempt from GMO regulations, with no separate requirements for risk assessment, traceability, labelling or co-existence. Category 2 products, incorporating changes which could not have occurred naturally, will continue to be subject to GMO-style risk assessment. The EU definition of Category 1 products is very similar to the Precision Bred Organisms (PBOs) established by the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act in England, and also mirrors the regulatory classification adopted in other countries, such as Canada, Japan, Argentina and Brazil.But while the planned regulatory changes may be aligned on both sides of the Channel, the response from the organic lobby could hardly be more at odds.