GMO deregulation: Slovakia to challenge new EU rules in Court

The Slo­vak gov­ern­ment will file a law­suit with the Court of Jus­tice of the Euro­pean Union (CJEU) against the new EU reg­u­la­tion on genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied plants devel­oped with new genet­ic engi­neer­ing tech­niques, accord­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Robert Fico.

The new reg­u­la­tion was final­ly approved by the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment in June this year. It has been pub­lished as Reg­u­la­tion (EU) 2026/1388 and its main pro­vi­sions will apply from 17 July 2028. Slo­va­kia had ear­li­er vot­ed against the new rules, along with Croa­t­ia, Hun­gary, Aus­tria, Roma­nia and Slove­nia.

“This reg­u­la­tion has sparked major protests because, essen­tial­ly, it says that ‘every­thing is fine’ and that there is noth­ing to wor­ry about. There is no evi­dence for this; we do not know what it could do to peo­ple,” Slo­vak Prime Min­is­ter Fico said, accord­ing to TASR.

Scientists, farmers and beekeepers oppose new rules

Oppo­si­tion to the new EU reg­u­la­tion has been expressed in an appeal addressed to Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Richard Takáč and Prime Min­is­ter Fico. The appeal was signed by around 300 sci­en­tists, organ­i­sa­tions and oth­er pub­lic fig­ures, includ­ing mem­bers of the Slo­vak Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, for­mer min­is­ters, the Slo­vak Bee­keep­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion, Green­peace Slo­va­kia, the Slo­vak Hunt­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, the Slo­vak Asso­ci­a­tion of Bak­ers, Con­fec­tion­ers and Pas­ta Mak­ers, the Asso­ci­a­tion of Feed Pro­duc­ers, Stor­age and Trad­ing Com­pa­nies, the Asso­ci­a­tion of Organ­ic Fer­tilis­er Pro­duc­ers, Agro-Eco Forum, Ekotrend and the Rur­al Par­lia­ment in Slo­va­kia.

On 14 July, Peter Sudovský of Sloven­sko bez GMO and Samuel Mate­jíč­ka of quid est VERITAS deliv­ered the appeal to Takáč, call­ing on the Slo­vak gov­ern­ment to bring an annul­ment action before the CJEU. The appeal, also signed by Save Our Seeds, argues that remov­ing manda­to­ry risk assess­ment, labelling and trace­abil­i­ty for GM plants threat­ens con­sumer choice, bio­di­ver­si­ty, organ­ic and non-GMO agri­cul­ture and food sov­er­eign­ty. It fur­ther argues that the reg­u­la­tion con­flicts with the EU pre­cau­tion­ary prin­ci­ple, con­sumer-pro­tec­tion require­ments, exist­ing CJEU GMO jurispru­dence and the Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col.

Poll finds 75% of Slovaks back court action

On 30 July, quid est VERITAS pub­lished a Polis Slo­va­kia poll of 1,002 adults show­ing strong oppo­si­tion to the dereg­u­la­tion. Some 80% opposed remov­ing new GMOs from the exist­ing GMO frame­work, 78% opposed remov­ing manda­to­ry risk assess­ments and 76% opposed remov­ing manda­to­ry food labelling. The tele­phone sur­vey, con­duct­ed on 21–27 July, also found that 75% sup­port­ed Slo­va­kia bring­ing an action before the CJEU to chal­lenge the reg­u­la­tion.

Clash between Slovak Academy of Sciences and ENSSER

In August, the Slo­vak Acad­e­my of Sci­ences (SAV) issued a state­ment sup­port­ing the new EU reg­u­la­tion, argu­ing that new GM tech­niques can con­tribute to sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture and that the DNA changes pro­duced in plants cat­e­gorised as NGT1 under the new rules can be indis­tin­guish­able from those aris­ing through con­ven­tion­al breed­ing.

ENSSER, the Euro­pean Net­work of Sci­en­tists for Social and Envi­ron­men­tal Respon­si­bil­i­ty, sub­se­quent­ly pub­lished a detailed rebut­tal, argu­ing that new GM tech­niques can pro­duce unin­tend­ed genet­ic changes and that the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence does not jus­ti­fy aban­don­ing case-spe­cif­ic risk assess­ment, mon­i­tor­ing and labelling for these GM plants.

‘Extraordinary political consensus’ in Slovakia

“Slo­va­kia has emerged as one of the strongest voic­es in Europe against the dereg­u­la­tion of new GMOs. At a time when some tra­di­tion­al oppo­nents are step­ping back, our gov­ern­ment is show­ing clear lead­er­ship in defend­ing envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, con­sumer choice and sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture,” said Samuel Mate­jíč­ka, direc­tor of quid est VERITAS. He not­ed that all MEPs from Slo­va­kia vot­ed con­sis­tent­ly against GMO dereg­u­la­tion and that this rep­re­sents an “extra­or­di­nary polit­i­cal con­sen­sus for Slo­va­kia”.

What happens next

Fol­low­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion of 2 Sep­tem­ber, Slo­va­kia still needs to lodge the action with the CJEU. The dead­line for such an action is under­stood to be 21 Sep­tem­ber, based on the CJEU’s rules for cal­cu­lat­ing the time lim­it for actions against acts pub­lished in the Offi­cial Jour­nal.

The case could take a year or more to reach a final judg­ment. Bring­ing the action would not, by itself, sus­pend the reg­u­la­tion. Slo­va­kia could sep­a­rate­ly apply for inter­im mea­sures, but any sus­pen­sion would have to be ordered by the Court.

More infor­ma­tion: Beyond GM

The pho­to by Max­im Mate­jíč­ka shows the han­dover of the appeal to Min­is­ter Richard Takáč on 14 July 2026.