The agri-food industry fears that the planned easing of regulations on new-generation genetically modified plants will be delayed for years by Hungary’s decision to reopen the debate on whether they should be treated as equivalent to conventional crops.
In the first days of his six-month presidency of intergovernmental negotiations, Hungary has questioned a proposal to equate a new generation of genetically modified crops to varieties produced using conventional techniques, with the aim of reopening a controversial EU political file.
While the EU Council presidency has so far been characterised by Anger at Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s impromptu trips to Moscow and Beijingthe diplomatic staff in Brussels has quietly included in the agenda of a meeting of national delegates on July 19 a proposal to revise EU rules on genetically modified crops.
In a discussion paper dated 3 July and seen by Euronews, the Hungarian Presidency points to the “deadlock” in which member states have found themselves since the European Commission proposed last year the deregulation of certain types of genetically modified crops.
The Regulation on New Genomic Techniques (NTG) would allow for more flexible regulation of a new category of crops created by modifying the DNA sequence of an organism using techniques that were not available when the current GMO Directive was adopted more than 20 years ago. requires strict security and surveillance controls.
Belgium was on the verge of reach a compromise position on the proposalin an attempt to clear the legislative backlog before handing over the reins to Hungary, but failed at the last attempt due to doubts about whether these new plant products should be patentablewhich critics say could lead to monopolies and limit farmers’ choice.
GMO advocates welcomed a new delay that they said would give lawmakers time to debate broader aspects of the law. risk assessment and examine an opinion from the French health regulatory body and food security ANSES, which has shown its opposition to treating NTG products as equivalent to conventional crops.
Now it seems that delay could be even longer, as Hungary intends to reopen the debate on equivalencearguing that an assessment based solely on the number and size of genetic modifications might not be sufficient to establish the risk posed a new transgenic product compared to a conventional crop with a long safety record.
Among other points in the Hungarian document, most of them raised at one time or another during the past year of negotiations, were concerns ranging from labelling and identification of NTG plants to exports and the compatibility of the proposed deregulation with the UN Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.
As Hungary seeks to reopen the debate, the European Food Safety Authority published a long-awaited assessment of the French proposal on July 10, concluding that genetically modified plants within the proposed threshold for “category 1” plants could arise spontaneously or by random mutation.
“Therefore, it is scientifically justified to consider NTG Category 1 plants as equivalent to conventionally bred plants with respect to the similarity of genetic modifications and similarity of potential risks“, wrote EFSA.
The scientific opinion of the EU regulator was seized upon by advocates of deregulation as further support for their position that NTG 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 debate on equivalence could set the political debate back five years.
“We consider that the focus of the document [húngaro] is an attempt to slow down the adoption of the proposal and progress towards adequate regulation and based on science, denying the agricultural sector access to advances in plant breeding innovation,” Jorasch told Euronews.
Greenpeace activist Eva Corral criticised the EFSA for an opinion that, in her opinion, It also does not agree with the conclusions of the Austrian and German environmental agencies UBA and BfN.
“The EFSA opinion Contradicts European national agenciesincluding ANSES in France, which warn of the potential risks of new GMOs for human health and the environment and call for all new GMOs to be subject to security controls and monitoring“.
The European Parliament has already agreed on its position on the reform of GMO regulations, and is waiting for an intergovernmental agreement so that the process can move forward.
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