EU ministers fail to find compromise on gene editing

EU agriculture ministers have failed to find a position on EU plans to relax rules on new genomic techniques (NGTs) as thorny issues like coexistence with organic farming and patentability continue to split European countries. 

In July, the European Commission proposed to loosen the rules on certain NGTs, or gene editing –  a number of new scientific methods used to alter genomes with the aim of genetically engineering certain traits into plants.

The Spanish EU Council Presidency – who will be succeeded by Belgium on 1 January – aimed to seal a deal on the Council’s position on the file during a meeting on Monday (11 December) – but their offering failed to reach the necessary majority for a general approach on NGTs.

Ministers were still divided on several controversial points of the legislation, such as the coexistence of NGTs with organic farming and the possibility of patenting new plant varieties. 

While countries with a long tradition of organic farming, like Germany and Austria, welcomed the proposed ban on the use of NGT plants in organic farming, they lamented the fact that the Commission’s proposal makes it difficult for such farmers to prove that their production is gene-editing free. 

“All consumers should still have the choice between products with and without gene technology, whether conventional or [organic],” said German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir. “We need rules on coexistence to ensure that a market that’s worth billions is not destroyed.” 

EU ministers also raised concerns over the EU executive’s decision to leave the issue of patentability unanswered.

“[The] small land and seed industry is threatened by a monopolisation that could take place here,” Austrian Agriculture Minister Norbert Totschnig told journalists ahead of the meeting, adding that “this could lead us to having more dependenc[y] and less variety”.

What next?

While Spain’s Agriculture Minister Luis Planas insisted that the presidency will keep working on the file until 31 December, the most likely course of action is that it will now pass to the baton to the Belgian presidency.

“We’ll continue to work [on this] until the end of our presidency so that the Belgian presidency can hopefully conclude the trilogues with success,” Planas said, warning that a failure to “make the most of this opportunity” would mean that the EU “will continue without a legal framework at least until 2025”. 

According to a representative for the Spanish presidency, they will now attempt to push for a position during a meeting of EU ambassadors on 22 December.

However, ahead of the vote, a source close to the matter explained that if a qualified majority is not reached, the approach will be turned into a “progress report or a state of play and move the file to the next to the next presidency”, adding that this was the “standard” procedure.

Meanwhile, EU Health and Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides stressed that the file is of crucial importance for the European Commission, calling it a “tool that we cannot afford not to take advantage of and use”.

To help move the debate along, she said the EU executive is “fully committed to assessing the potential impact of patenting of plants,” calling it a “prominent issue” in the debate in both Council and Parliament. 

“There are important issues but I’m confident we can find a way forward,” she said, promising that the Commission “will be looking at this”.  

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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