ECVC welcomes the absence of a majority in favour of the deregulation of new GMOs in the Council of Ministers

For its part, the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee also had to give its opinion on the proposal: it removed the little regulation of GMOs/NGTs that the Commission was proposing to retain, but explicitly recognised the risk of all seeds being confiscated by the patents of a few seed multinationals, without however proposing any really effective solution.

Since the Commission's proposal to deregulate GMOs/NGTs was published in July, the Spanish Presidency has imposed a very tight timetable for these negotiations and hoped to reach agreement on a general approach by the Council before the end of 2023. However, it is clear that this dossier raises many concerns and discussion cannot be rushed. In particular, many States have raised concerns about the loss of traceability, which would make it impossible to for guaranteed GMO-free organic and conventional farming to coexist with new GMOs, as well as depriving citizens of accurate labelling and the right of citizens to continue to eat GMO-free.

As ECVC has been denouncing since the beginning of this legislative process, it would be irresponsible to reach an agreement on this proposal without considering how deregulating new GMOs/NGTs will impact the scope of patents and farmers’ rights over their seeds and cultivated biodiversity. In all the countries where GMOs/NGTs have been deregulated, patents have resulted in a monopolistic concentration of the seed market in the hands of a few multinationals.

The compromise amendments added by the Spanish Presidency to its proposal include a number of elements relating to category 2 NGTs: the possibility for Member States to ban cultivation, labelling possibilities including on food products, and so on. It should be noted that these “compromise” measures are of no use, because without any obligation to publish the process for detecting and identifying GMOs/NGTs, companies will simply be able to falsely claim their NGTs belong to category 1.

The only way to respond to the concerns of Member States and respect the precautionary principle and ensure coexistence and transparency for consumers and the patents covering these techniques is to maintain the current GMO legislation. NTGs are GMOs and must be regulated as such. ECVC calls on all Member States and the EU Parliament to reject this unacceptable proposal, which will have irreversible effects on the guaranteed GMO-free agricultural sector, agrobiodiversity and the European seed market.