EU ministers approve GMO deregulation deal  

On 21 April, the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters for­mal­ly adopt­ed the out­come of tri­logue nego­ti­a­tions on the EU’s pro­posed new leg­is­la­tion for genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied plants devel­oped with so-called new genom­ic tech­niques (NGTs). 

The deci­sion was approved as an A point by the For­eign Affairs Coun­cil, mean­ing it passed with­out debate. The out­come con­firms the same vot­ing posi­tions already expressed dur­ing the infor­mal adop­tion in Decem­ber: Croa­t­ia, Hun­gary, Aus­tria, Roma­nia, Slove­nia and Slo­va­kia vot­ed against, while Bel­gium, Bul­gar­ia and Ger­many abstained. 

The for­mal Coun­cil approval now shifts polit­i­cal atten­tion to the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, which is expect­ed to hold a deci­sive ple­nary vote on 19 May. 

Many reasons not to support the deal  

Sev­er­al gov­ern­ments made clear that their oppo­si­tion was not sym­bol­ic. Croa­t­ia, Hun­gary, Aus­tria, Slove­nia and Slo­va­kia all sub­mit­ted writ­ten state­ments explain­ing why they could not sup­port the nego­ti­at­ed text.  

All five gov­ern­ments crit­i­cised the lack of con­sumer labelling for Cat­e­go­ry 1 NGT prod­ucts. Slo­va­kia made this its cen­tral objec­tion, stat­ing that the fail­ure to label Cat­e­go­ry 1 NGT plants and their prod­ucts lim­its “consumer’s right to make an informed choice”. 

Croa­t­ia, Hun­gary, Aus­tria and Slove­nia all argued that the text fails to respect the EU pre­cau­tion­ary prin­ci­ple. Aus­tria, Hun­gary and Slove­nia specif­i­cal­ly crit­i­cised the lack of risk assess­ment require­ments. Aus­tria also stat­ed that the equiv­a­lence cri­te­ria used to exempt many GM plants from EU GMO rules “do not have a sci­en­tif­ic basis”. 

Aus­tria ques­tioned how the GMO ban in organ­ic pro­duc­tion could be imple­ment­ed “with­out incur­ring sub­stan­tial addi­tion­al costs for those in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor”. Croa­t­ia warned that there are “no mea­sures in place to pre­vent poten­tial envi­ron­men­tal con­t­a­m­i­na­tion by NGT plants and no com­pen­sa­tion mech­a­nisms in case of harm, espe­cial­ly in rela­tion to organ­ic pro­duc­tion”. 

Sev­er­al gov­ern­ments also object­ed that Mem­ber States would lose the abil­i­ty to restrict or pro­hib­it cul­ti­va­tion of these GM plants on their own ter­ri­to­ry.  

Hun­gary stat­ed that the pro­pos­al fails to ensure “com­pli­ance with Hungary’s inter­na­tion­al treaty oblig­a­tions,” like­ly refer­ring to the Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col on Biosafe­ty under the UN Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty. Hun­gary had ear­li­er raised this point under its EU Pres­i­den­cy. Aus­tria explic­it­ly said the lack of risk assess­ment was “con­trary” to the Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col.

Patents still unresolved  

Anoth­er major con­tro­ver­sy remains unre­solved: patents on genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered plants and traits.  

In an accom­pa­ny­ing state­ment, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion mere­ly repeat­ed mea­sures already con­tained in the tri­logue text. These include promis­es to mon­i­tor impacts on small­er breed­ers, to sup­port a “code of con­duct” for patent hold­ers and vol­un­tary licenc­ing plat­forms, and to offer guid­ance to small­er breed­ers.   

Aus­tria stat­ed that these patent pro­vi­sions “nei­ther address the fun­da­men­tal con­cerns sur­round­ing this issue nor pro­vide legal cer­tain­ty”. It warned that patent­ing could still force small and medi­um-sized breed­ing com­pa­nies out of the mar­ket. 

Growing resistance in Germany 

Con­cern over patents is also grow­ing with­in Ger­many. Nor­bert Lins, one of the CDU/CSU’s lead­ing agri­cul­tur­al voic­es in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, togeth­er with ten col­leagues, recent­ly urged the Com­mis­sion to ensure that genet­ic traits that occur nat­u­ral­ly or can be achieved through con­ven­tion­al breed­ing should not be patentable.  

In a joint let­ter, they said the patent­ing pro­vi­sions in the tri­logue deal did “not replace a clear polit­i­cal and legal solu­tion” and called on the Com­mis­sion to revise EU patent law.  

Even the Ger­man Farm­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion (DBV), gen­er­al­ly sup­port­ive of new GM tech­niques, said the tri­logue out­come crossed “a clear red line”. A spokesper­son warned that expand­ing patent con­trol could far out­weigh any hoped-for ben­e­fits of improved plant vari­eties. 

Parliament vote could reopen negotiations  

The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment still has the pow­er to reject or amend the tri­logue deal. The ple­nary vote is cur­rent­ly pen­cilled in for 19 May.  

Christophe Clergeau, shad­ow rap­por­teur for the Social­ists & Democ­rats group, has already announced plans to table amend­ments on patents. If adopt­ed, this would reopen nego­ti­a­tions between Par­lia­ment, Coun­cil and Com­mis­sion. 

In Feb­ru­ary 2024, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment had vot­ed on a full ban on patents. The rel­e­vant amend­ment, which sought to amend the EU Biotech Direc­tive, received almost uni­ver­sal sup­port. Nev­er­the­less, that demand was dropped dur­ing tri­logue talks.  

Public opposition intensifies

The upcom­ing Par­lia­ment vote may be the last chance to improve a deal that would harm farm­ers, breed­ers, con­sumers and the envi­ron­ment. 

As we argued else­where, the deal rep­re­sents a polit­i­cal choice to elim­i­nate trans­paren­cy, obscure risks and shift con­trol of the food sys­tem into the hands of a small num­ber of cor­po­ra­tions.  

Save Our Seeds, togeth­er with part­ner organ­i­sa­tions, is urg­ing cit­i­zens across Europe to con­tact their Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and ask them to reject the deal in its cur­rent form. More than 40,000 peo­ple have already tak­en action. 

👉 Take action here 

Image © Euro­pean Union. Kaja Kallas, EU High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for For­eign Affairs, presents the A points.