EU foreign affairs ministers have today endorsed the wide deregulation of a new generation of genetically-modified food and seeds (new GMOs, or so-called “New Genomic Techniques”). It means they agreed to exclude them from existing labelling and safety check requirements, taking away farmers and consumers’ right to choose what they grow in their fields and eat. This decision goes against both the food industry’s and citizens’ clear demand to keep their right to know about all generations of GMOs (1).
It marks the first vote by EU ministers on this file since 2023, and it is noteworthy that it is taken by foreign affairs ministers rather than those responsible for agriculture or the environment. Foreign affairs ministers have been voting on all the legislative packages dismantling EU’s social and environmental protections, so-called ‘Omnibus’. This clearly shows this new GMOs file is part of a broader deregulatory agenda from European decision-makers.
Mute Schimpf, food campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said:
“For over twenty years, Europeans have made it clear they don’t want GMOs on their plates. How dare our ministers now try to sneak them in, blacking them out from labels?
This isn’t about innovation, it’s about allowing a handful of big biotech and pesticide corporations like Bayer to make ever more profits on the back of millions of farmers and consumers, and nature.”
By excluding them from the current GMO legislation, new GMOs will now be marketed and grown without any type of safety check and monitoring for potential harm to people’s health and nature. Biotech corporations selling them will no longer be held liable if harm occurs or if they contaminate conventional or organic fields and produce.
Notes
(1) More than 350 food companies from 16 countries as well as consumer groups have called for clear labelling to be maintained for new GMOs.
On the Regulation proposal:
- Draft regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council. Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia voting against, Belgium, Germany and Bulgaria abstaining (paragraph 7).
- Official text voted by the Council
Background information on the deregulation of new GMOs
- New GMOs, who wins and who loses? From labelling and liability to patents and risk assesments – Friends of the Earth Europe
- Unmasking new GMOs: protecting farmers and consumers’ right to transparency – Friends of the Earth Europe and Foodwatch
- How big agri ghost-wrote the Commission’s proposal on new GMOs – Friends of the Earth Europe
