Europe’s agri-tech industry is sounding the alarm: the planned easing of regulation for GMO crops – the next generation of crops – could be delayed for years due to Hungary’s decision to renew the debate on whether they should be equated with traditional crops.
Hungary is challenging a proposal by European regulators to equate a new generation of genetically modified crops with varieties produced through traditional breeding, triggering another round of debate from the first days of its six-month EU presidency.
Budapest took the helm of the EU amid strained relations with the bloc’s neighbors, which have worsened after Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s impromptu trips to Moscow and Beijing. Against this background, as our channel learned, a proposal came from Brussels to relax the rules on genetically modified crops produced with the help of the so-called new genomic technologies, or NGT.
Until now, plants obtained with the help of NGT are subject to the same rules as GMOs. In order to better reflect different risk profiles, the EU wants to equate NGT cultures with traditional ones. The proposal will be brought up for discussion at the meeting of national delegates on July 19.
The Innovative Genomic Technologies Regulation will allow products created by altering the DNA sequence to be grown and sold more freely. Importantly, similar technologies were not available at the time of the adoption more than 20 years ago of the current EU GMO Directive, which requires strict control and safety monitoring.
Belgium, the former EU president, tried to bring EU countries to a compromise but failed due to concerns over the patentability of new plant products.
Environmentalists welcomed the delay, which they said would give lawmakers time to assess the full range of risks and listen to ANSES, France’s health and food safety regulator, which opposes equating NGTs with traditional crops.
Now it appears the delay could be even longer as Hungary seeks to resume talks on equivalence, arguing that the current approach to assessing the risks of NGTs does not allow for the full range of their potential negative effects compared to traditional crops with a long history of safety.
Hungary has long and consistently opposed the scaling up of GMO products, including the latest NGT technologies, pointing to many unresolved issues – from labeling and identification of genetically modified products to export and compatibility of plantings of various kinds.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) believes that NGT crops should be distinguished from GMOs, where the gene is transplanted from one species to another. Pietra Jorash, head of innovation protection at trade association Euroseeds, said a renewed debate on equivalence could set the political agenda in the field back five years.
“We see Hungary’s approach as an attempt to slow down the adoption of the proposal and progress towards creating suitable and science-based regulation by denying the agricultural sector access to innovative advances in plant breeding,” Jorás told Euronews.
Greenpeace activist Eva Koral, on the other hand, criticized the European regulator and supported Budapest’s desire to play it safe.
“EFSA’s opinion contradicts European national agencies, including ANSES in France, which warn of the potential risk of new GMOs to human health and the environment and call for all novelties to be tested and monitored for safety,” she comments.
The European Parliament has previously agreed on its position on the reform of the regulation of GMOs, where an intergovernmental agreement is expected to move the process from a deadlock.