The future is coming: the arrival of NGTs
In the middle of the battle taking place in Brussels around the Nature Restoration Law and the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Regulation, the much-expected new rules on New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) have just been announced this week. The publication of the new set of rules on NGTs has been delayed over the last few months and now it has finally arrived.
Background
NGTs – or new plant breeding techniques (NBTs) – describe several new scientific methods used to alter genomes with the aim of genetically engineering certain traits into plants, such as drought tolerance or pest resistance. This new legislation will be the result of a judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU, according to which only products of methods of mutagenesis routinely used until 2001 are exempted from the EU GMO legislation. Since the passing of this judgment, multiple stakeholders – such as researchers or farmers associations –, asked for changes to the EU legislation, usually through exclusions or exemptions of certain classes of organisms.
Within the context of the EU Green Deal, there are grand expectations for NGTs as they can represent a useful tool to close the gap with the risks that other new legislation introduced in the EU over the last years can bring to food production. In this sense, NGTs can help to achieve the EU’s environmental goals (i.e., the reduction in the use of pesticides by 50%) while ensuring food supply.
The proposal covers plants that contain genetic material from the same plant (targeted mutagenesis) or from crossable plants (cisgenesis, including intragenesis); transgenic plants (which contain genetic material from non-crossable species) will remain subject to the GMO legislation as it stands today. In the proposal 2 distinct pathways are created for NGT plants to be granted access to the market: category 1 NGT plants -those can occur naturally or by conventional breeding- would be subject to a verification procedure, based on criteria set in the proposal; category 2 NGT plants will apply to any other NGT plants and the requirements of the current GMO legislation will apply.
Political debate
The proposal was expected to be presented in June 2023 by the European Commission. The delay was due to certain remarks made by the Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB) in the first draft. Once those remarks were addressed, the proposal was announced on July 5th as expected together with other legislative proposals such as the EU Soil Law, and the revision of the legislation on seeds and other plant and forest reproductive material.
In the last months, given the growing tensions over the proposals on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (SUR) and the Nature Restoration Law (NRL), there have been different declarations from EU officials and even from European Commission’s VP Frans Timmermans linking the NGTs proposal to the success of these two other proposals warning that a rejection of any of these proposals would result in the EC suspending the presentation of its proposal on NGTs. The situation is complex, especially after the rejections of AGRI and PECH committees in the EP of the NRL proposal and the suspended vote in the ENVI committee, but the proposal is expected to help overcome those difficulties. VP Timmermans during the press conference on July 5th expressed his hopes on this proposal to help in that sense.
In a first exchange of views in the EP’s committees on agriculture and environment, the proposal was welcomed but MEPs made remarks on certain aspects such as intellectual property rights or the relation with organic production methods.
How we can help you
At Schuttelaar & Partners, we are closely following the developments of these legislative proposals and the impact that they will bring to the agri-food sector across Europe over the next few months and years. The release of the proposals is not the end of the line, but rather a new beginning from which we can help shape progress over time. Although the 2024 election is around the corner, we do expect efforts to be made to progress the legislative process before then as the NGTs legislation will be one of the priorities of the Spanish Presidency. We are able to provide our expert knowledge in this field to help companies stay up to date, for example through close monitoring, engagement with stakeholders, organization of workshops, elaboration of executive summaries, or tailor-made master classes.