The agrotech industry fears a planned easing of regulation for new generation GM plants could be delayed for years by Hungary's decision to reopen the debate on whether they should be treated as equivalent to conventional crops.
ADVERTISEMENTHungary has questioned a proposal to treat a new generation of genetically modified crops as equivalent to strains produced through conventional breeding as it looks to reopen a controversial EU policy file in the first days of its six-month stint as chair of inter-governmental negotiations.
While its EU Council presidency has so far been marked by anger over prime minister Viktor Orbán’s impromptu trips to Moscow and Beijing, diplomatic staff in Brussels have quietly put a proposal to revise EU rules on genetically modified (GM) crops on the agenda for a meeting of national delegates on 19 July.
In a discussion paper dated 3 July and seen by Euronews, the Hungarian presidency notes a “deadlock” that has developed among member states since the European Commission proposed last year a deregulation of certain types of GM crops.
The New Genomic Techniques Regulation would allow for light-touch regulation of a new category of crops created by tweaking the DNA sequence of an organism using techniques that were not available when the existing GMO Directive, which demands strict safety checks and monitoring, was adopted over 20 years ago.
Belgium came close to forging a compromise position on the proposal as it sought to clear a legislative backlog before handing the reins to Hungary, but failed at the last attempt due to ongoing concerns over whether such new plant products should be patentable, which critics warned could lead to monopolies and limit choice for farmers.
Anti-GM campaigners welcomed a further delay they said would give time for lawmakers to discuss broader aspects of risk assessment and examine an opinion from the French health and food safety regulator ANSES, which has argued against treating NGT products as equivalent to conventionally bred crops.
It now looks like that delay could be yet longer, as Hungary seeks to reopen the debate over equivalence, arguing that assessment based only on the number and size of genetic modifications might not be sufficient for establishing the risk posed by a new GM product compared to a conventional crop with a long safety record.
Among other points in the Hungarian paper, most of them raised at one point or another during the past year of negotiations, were concerns ranging from the labelling and identification of NGT plants to exports and the compatibility of the proposed deregulation with the UN’s Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.
While Hungary looks to re-open the debate, the European Food Safety Authority published yesterday (10 July) a long awaited assessment of the French proposal, in which it concluded that plants with genetic modifications within the threshold proposed for ‘category 1’ plants could arise spontaneously or by random mutation.
“Therefore, it is scientifically justified to consider category 1 NGT plants as equivalent to conventionally bred plants with respect to the similarity of genetic modifications and the similarity of potential risks,” EFSA wrote.
The EU regulator’s scientific opinion was seized upon by advocates of deregulation as further support for their position that NGT crops are not the same as GMOs where a gene is transplanted from one species to another. Petra Jorasch, head of innovation advocacy at the trade association Euroseeds, said reopening the equivalence debate could set the policy debate back five years.
“We consider the approach in the [Hungarian] paper as an attempt to slow down the adoption of the proposal and the advancement towards a fit for purpose and science-based regulation, denying the access of the agricultural sector to the advances in plant breeding innovation,” Jorasch told Euronews.
Greenpeace campaigner Eva Corral slammed EFSA for an opinion she said was also out of whack with the conclusions of the Austrian and German environment agencies UBA and BfN.
“EFSA’s opinion contradicts European national agencies, including ANSES in France, that warn about the potential risks of new GMOs for human health and the environment and call for all new GMOs to be subject to safety checks and monitoring.”
The European Parliament has already agreed its position on the GMO regulation reform, and awaits an intergovernmental agreement before the process can move forward.
