EU top court rules new breeding techniques count as GMOs
BRUSSELS (AP)—The European Union’s top court ruled July 25 that food produced by a series of new biotechnology breeding techniques should be considered genetically modified organisms, thus falling under the EU’s strict regulations of the products.
The ruling, which will see the foods face special safety checks and labeling restrictions, was seen as a major victory for environmentalists at the expense of the biotech industry.
Biotech companies have been working on a new generation of technologies to change genetic material in plants or animals, and it had long been debated whether they need to match the EU’s rules limiting genetic modification that are much stricter than in the United States.
In the ruling, the European Court of Justice said that the organisms created by the new breeding techniques “come, in principle, within the scope of the GMO Directive and are subject to the obligations laid down by that directive.”
The biotech industry says that the new techniques make it easier to create organisms that are drought and disease resistant while providing higher nutrition yields. They say that locking them in to the strict EU GMO regulations would stifle their development. Others say that their unchecked and unbridled development would put nature and human health at risk.
German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze welcomed the ruling, calling it “good news for the environment and consumer protection. The verdict is also a clear commitment to the precautionary principle in Europe.”
“Now we finally have the necessary legal certainty and transparency for consumers, researchers and industry,” she said.
“Protecting the environment and health are our top priority with new genetic technology as well,” Schulze added.
Mute Schimpf, of Friends of the Earth Europe, welcomed the ruling at the European Court of Justice, saying that under it the new techniques “must be fully tested before they are let out in the countryside and in our food.”
But United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue rejected those arguments in a statement following the ECJ ruling.
“Government policies should encourage scientific innovation without creating unnecessary barriers or unjustifiably stigmatizing new technologies,” Perdue said. “Unfortunately, this week’s ECJ ruling is a setback in this regard in that it narrowly considers newer genome editing methods to be within the scope of the European Union’s regressive and outdated regulations governing genetically modified organisms.
“We encourage the European Union to seek input from the scientific and agricultural communities, as well as its trading partners, in determining the appropriate implementation of the ruling.
“Innovations in precision biotechnology, such as genome editing, hold great promise. For consumers, potential benefits include healthier, higher-quality foods at affordable prices. For farmers, they include improvements in productivity, plant and animal health, and environmental sustainability.
“The global regulatory treatment of genome-edited agricultural products has strategic innovation and trade implications for U.S. agriculture. For this reason, USDA has clear science- and risk-based policies that enable needed innovation while continuing to ensure these products are safe.
“USDA will re-double its efforts to work with partners globally towards science- and risk-based regulatory approaches.”
Senior field editor Larry Dreiling contributed to this report.
