The Council of the European Union under the Polish Presidency has adopted by a qualified majority vote the proposal for a Regulation on New Genomic Techniques (NGT)

AFBV and WGG see today’s vote as a major step in the European process to achieve a final regulation on NGT.

In its 19 February communication „A Vision for Agriculture and Food“, the Commission recalled that it was „particularly important to complete the legislative procedure for the Commission’s NGT proposal and to implement the legislation fast“, providing the following justifications: 

“ Plant breeding innovations, including the use of biotechnological tools such as new genomic techniques (NGTs), are key to accelerating the development of climate-change resilient, resource-saving, nutritious and high-yielding varieties, and thereby contribute to the EU’s food security and food sovereignty. NGTs can also yield microorganisms with positive impact on agricultural production, e.g. by reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers.”

The Commission also indicated that to reap the benefits of these innovations, an enabling regulatory framework in the EU is needed, ensuring a level-playing field with an increasing number of third countries, which are in the process of adapting their legislation or have done so already.  Therefore we call on the co-legislators to ensure that the final text honors the objective of an enabling regulatory framework, i.e. that it avoids onerous obligations for agri-food operators and farmers whenever genetic changes from NGTs are indistinguishable from spontaneous or random mutations, and in particular that it does not impose detection, identification and quantification methods.

We wish once again to highlight the remarkable work accomplished by the Polish Presidency.