New GMOs, same risks: EU Ministers urged to apply scrutiny, not shortcuts

Tomorrow, Tuesday 26 March, EU agriculture ministers will discuss the bloc’s legal framework for the new generation of GMOs, now also called new genomic techniques (NGTs). Following recent challenges to the EU Commission’s deregulation proposal by national authorities, the debate on whether and how those new GMOs should be kept regulated, risk assessed and labelled gained new pace.

Since the last ministerial exchange in late 2023, both the French and German national environmental and health agencies have published reports that call into question the EU Commission’s conclusion that most new GMOs would not cause more risks for the health and the environment than any conventionally bred plants. This assumption formed the basis of the Commission’s wide deregulation proposal, which suggests to exclude new GMOs from the current EU GMO labelling requirements, safety checks and traceability processes.

Mute Schimpf, food campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said:

“The recent reports leave no room for doubt – new GMOs, same old risks. It’s time to put an end to the absurd fantasy that they require shortcuts instead of scrutiny. We urge ministers to prioritise the best interests of farmers, consumers, and nature, not those of the agribusiness.”

Both national authorities recommend case-by-case safety checks concerning potential health [1] and environmental risks.[2] It stands in contrast to the EU Council of agriculture ministers’ proposal to allow the unlimited marketing and cultivation of new GMOs without any safety check at all.

Friends of the Earth Europe calls on ministers to include these new scientific findings in their position and fundamentally redesign the law proposal. Pre-marketing safety checks, monitoring, liability and transparency requirements must be kept mandatory for new GMOs along the entire supply-chain, from breeding to supermarket shelves.

Next steps: It is highly unlikely that ministers will come to an agreement with the current European Parliament. The Belgian EU Presidency did not manage to find a majority for the text yet.

About the deregulation proposal

Friends of the Earth Europe is deeply concerned by the impacts the current proposal would have on the environment, the food sector, farmers and  consumers.

The Belgian presidency’s deregulation draft would abolish labelling requirements, safety checks and any type of liability  processes for new GMOs. As a result, consumers, farmers, and food  processors would no longer have transparency on whether the plants and food they grow, buy and eat contains new GMOs or not. The proposal would mean:

Releasing untested new GMOs into nature. So far, the direct and indirect impacts of putting new GMOs in the wild have not been assessed. For instance, no research has been conducted on how new  GMOs interact with bees and other pollinators, nor on how GMO cropping can speed biodiversity loss.

Abolishing consumers’ right to know as defined in  the European treaties as well as in EU’s general food law. By excluding new GMOs from labelling requirements, consumers, farmers and the whole food chain can no longer know if the seeds, ingredients and final food products they buy contain new GMOs or not.

Abolishing basic responsibilities for the biotech industry, such as delivering a testing method for each new GMO they develop. The  new legislation makes it impossible for farmers and the food sector that want to produce conventional, organic or GMO-free food to protect themselves against unwanted contamination. The European Commission  proposes to have testing methods be paid by those who want to avoid new  GMOs and to remove public cultivation registers.

Making it impossible for national authorities to control food safety of new GMOs as the biotech industry is no longer required to provide testing  methods, nor are the operators obliged to trace the product along the food chain.

Setting a precedent for corporate-driven law-making. The European Commission proposal is based on promises made by the  industry about products that are currently still in the pipeline, without baseline or independent assessment on the actual sustainability of new GMOs.
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Notes

[1] The first ANSES (the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety) report on NGTs dates from November 2023 and was published in March 2024: https://www.anses.fr/en/system/files/BIOT2023AUTO0189EN.pdf

[2] See https://gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/19917

Source: Friends of the Earth Europe

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