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 n
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At a Euractiv media event to mark the launch of the Breakthrough Institute/Alliance for Science’s new report on ‘new genomic techniques,’ stakeholders representing farmers, seed producers, and policymakers welcomed the more science-based approach proposed by the European Commission.Speaking at the event were Klaus Berend, Director, Food Safety, Sustainability and Innovation directorate of the European Commission’s DG SANTE; Garlich von Essen, Secretary-General of Euroseeds, representing seed producers in Europe; Thor Gunnar Kofoed, an organic farmer and chair of the seed working group of the European farmers association COPA-COGECA; and Dr Sheila Ochugboju, Director of the Alliance for Science.Divide gene-edited plants into two categoriesThe report, entitled The €3 Trillion Cost of Saying No: How the EU Risks Falling Behind in the Bio-economy Revolution, examines how outdated EU laws, especially a 2001 regulatory framework that currently classifies gene-edited cro