Articles

In July 2023, the EU Commission presented a proposal for the future regulation of plants whose genome has been altered with new genomic techniques (NGTs), e. g. with CRISPR/Cas gene scissors. The Commission appears intent on abandoning the basic principle of current EU legislation, i. e. that all organisms obtained through genetic engineering processes must undergo risk assessment. The EU commission proposal suggests creating a new ‘Category 1’ for the majority of NGT plants – these would then only need to be registered but not undergo in-depth risk assessment. In legal terms, the NGT plants of Category 1 would then be equal to conventionallybred plants, i. e. deregulated, even if they are biologically different. Under the new regulatory framework, neither the intended traits of the NGT plants nor the unintended genetic changes brought about by NGT processes would need to undergo risk assessment. The Commission also proposes abandoning its previous requirements in regard to methods of detection and labelling.