The European Commission today published a study, commissioned by the Council of the EU, on “new genomic techniques”, in which it suggests that current GMO legislation is not “adapted to the scientific and technological progress” of new genetic modification techniques. ECVC denounces this attempt by the European Commission to cover up its inaction on the implementation of the current GMO legislation, and also denounces the considerable influence of agribusiness lobbies on the results of this study.

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The European Commission has announced the opening of a public consultation to explore policy options in the coming months. For ECVC, the Commission must quickly review its message in order to open a public debate based on facts and not mistruths.

In order to guarantee the right of farmers to freely choose and to have transparent access to information about the crops they grow, in addition to guaranteeing the right of citizens to know what kind of products end up on their plates, ECVC opposes any modification of the current European regulation. We reject the appropriation of the food chain by a handful of multinationals as a result of the patents they register on these GMOs. For this reason, and by virtue of the precautionary principle, all GMOs must remain regulated by EU GMO law, as confirmed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its judgment of 25 July 2018.