Brussels (Brussels Morning) – Belgium is seeking to halt a stalemate among EU governments over a suggested easing of regulation for GMO crops produced utilising the latest gene editing techniques, by addressing problems over the patenting of novel seed varieties by agribusinesses.
What Are Belgium’s Proposals for GMO Regulation Changes?
Belgian officials have suggested that patented plant strains should not be included in light-touch regulation for genetically altered crops produced using modern DNA editing technology, as the present holder of the EU Council presidency seeks to determine agreement on new rules before its term expires at the end of June.
What Is the EU Commission’s Role in GMO Regulation?
Under a proposal to improve the GMO Directive, the European Commission has proposed developing a new category of genetically altered plant products whose genome has been modified with a fixed number of tweaks using targeted mutagenesis methods developed since the legislation was embraced over two decades ago. Conventional GMOs were constructed by inserting a whole gene from one organism into another.
With calls from the EU Council suggesting an inter-governmental arrangement was unlikely before the European elections in June, the European Parliament last month concluded its first reading position on the hotly discussed bill, in order to avoid having to resume negotiations from scratch when the latest assembly takes office in July. A key bonding point was the question of patentability.
How Will Patent Issues Affect New GMO Regulations?
Under the compromise proposed by Belgium, to be examined by government delegates on 22 May in an agriculture working group, applicants would have to indicate that a strain completed with new genomic techniques (NGT) is not covered by any patents in any EU member states, and “reserve not to exercise their rights on the NGT plant in the European Union as long as it is reported category 1 NGT plant status”.
The recommendation for a lightly regulated new ‘category 1’ is based on the hypothesis – disputed by environment activists and organic farming groups – that an exact plant could have arisen in the wild or could be formed using conventional breeding techniques.
What Are Belgium’s Compromise Proposals for GMO Crops?
The current compromise text also deletes an exclusion from the GMO-lite category of herbicide-resistant themes of GMO plants – used to create massive monocultures in a production model that has so far failed to carry root in Europe due to a lack of public acceptance.
The German NGO Testbiotech, a vocal critic of the suggested deregulation, expressed the risks linked with the new-generation GMO products had nothing to do with their position under patent law. “There is undeniable evidence of substantial risks associated with the opening of NGT plants,” the group stated in a statement, noting that the parliament wanted a prohibition on patents for all GMOs, not just the newer types.
Agriculture ministers declined in December an earlier effort by Spain – the only nation in Europe where any meaningful cultivation of GMO crops takes place – to split the deadlock on the overhaul of GMO regulations, with several nations, including Germany, voicing concerns over the need for compulsory labelling and a lack of social acceptance.
