This is a follow-up to the article in LiveSeeding’s Newsletter #3, Policy updates on PRM marketing and NGTs , published in May 2024. Since then, several steps have been made in the discussion on the PRM and NGT files, mainly in the EU Council.
Reform of the seed marketing legislation
On the 24th of April 2024, the EU Parlaiment voted on the proposal in the plenary in Strasbourg. In short this meant that, the amendment to adapt the Organic Regulation was deleted, no mandatory VSCU tests for fruit and vegetables and somewhat positive provisions for conversation activities – although not perfect.
The Parliament’s decision now forms the basis for the negotiations in the trialogue with the EU Commission and the Council of Agriculture Ministers on the final legislative text. The Council of the EU is still working on their position.
In June 2024, a progress report on the file was presented at the Council of EU Agriculture Ministers in Luxembourg, under the Belgium Council Presidency. The progress report has been analyzed by the organic plant breeding sector, as well as the conservation movement. Particular emphasis should be paid to the safeguarding of Organic Heterogeneous Material, and on the importance of not making stricter rules for VCU testing for variety registration. Additional elements, such as a very limited scope exemptions for conservation & farmers’ exchange and number of regulated species are identified as worrying.
This progress report only covers part of the Commission’s proposal, meaning that not all articles in the proposal have been discussed yet by the Council of the EU. This process is still ongoing and will likely continue for a while, within the AGRIFISH Council and the Working Party on Genetic Resources & Innovation. Only until the Council of the EU reaches a ‘General Approach’, trilogue negotiations are expected to commence.
Deregulation of New Genomic Techniques
The Commission published a legislative proposal on “New Genomic Techniques” to adapt the current regulatory framework on genetic engineering on 5 July 2023. This proposal came after significant political pressure and following a 2021 study from the European Commission. From that moment onwards, both the European Parliament and the Council have hurried to reach positions on the file. The European Parliament has reached a position and finalised its official ‘first reading’ of the file. The text of the Parliament’s position remains close to the Commission’s proposal but introduces some additional provisions on traceability and labelling for Category 1 NGT crops.
Yet, the European Council is still struggling to reach a compromise (there were two failed attempts by the European Council to reach a “general approach”, once in December 2023 and then again in February 2024). Under the Spanish and Belgian presidency, EU agricultural ministers were put under enormous pressure to reach a position, with intense frequency of exchanges between the EU Member States and a rushed process that omitted a thorough discussion on many topics including biosafety and consumer information. Instead, discussions in the Council were centered exclusively around the question of how to solve the issue of patents to protect the European breeding sector. A blocking minority of countries so far has prevented a general approach.
Ongoing Debate and Future Outlook
The currently residing Hungarian presidency published a non-paper beginning of July, delineating 9 outstanding issues with the NGT proposal and asked Member States to send in their input on the non-paper. IFOAM Organics Europe welcomed this approach of opening up comprehensive discussions, stating that there are many unresolved issues which still loom large. Accordingly, this rushed legislative process goes against the interest of European breeders, farmers and citizens. IFOAM Organics Europe urged policymakers to insist on a thorough discussion to address the manifold concerns raised by Member States and, at a minimum, to support the maintenance of essential safeguards for biosafety and freedom of choice for producers and consumers.
The reactions of EU Member States to this non-paper were mixed: while some Member States submitted constructive feedback, most countries supported the compromise proposal from February 2024 and asked for the presidency to take it as a starting point. Some Member States misleadingly stated that many of the issues raised in the Hungarian non-paper were already resolved in the previous working group. The ban of all NGTs for the organic sector has large support in the Council. However, most countries agreed that seed labelling is sufficient to ensure the freedom of choice, thus not extending the system of full supply chain traceability, which is important to give farmers and food producers the tools to remain NGT-free.
On the topic of labelling, in an impressive joint action, organic and conventional companies from all over Europe have recently signed a joint letter “Food Industry for Freedom of Choice” calling for rigorous labelling, co-existence measures and detection methods of NGTs in Europe in order to safeguard their freedom of choice (376 companies from 16 EU countries). In September, the letter was handed over in Budapest to István Nagy, the Hungarian Minister of Agriculture and current EU Council President for Agriculture and Fisheries, to convey the industry’s concerns (see here our article).
While the Hungarian presidency did not manage to make significant progress on the NGT file, the legislative proposal is far from being forgotten by EU policymakers. There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the potential timeline of the legislative process, but what is certain is that looking forward, all eyes will be on the Polish government which will preside over the European Council from January 2025 onwards.
