GMO news related to Belgium

16.05.2018 |

The EU needs to speak up to avoid ‘backdoor’ GMOs on our plates

By Mute Schimpf | Friends of the Earth Europe

When is a genetically modified organism (GMO) not a GMO? This is the question that the ECJ will soon rule on after a complaint from a coalition of French agriculture groups reached the EU’s highest court, writes Mute Schimpf.

Schimpf is a food campaigner for the environmental NGO Friends of the Earth Europe.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is expected to rule in the coming weeks whether new genetic modification (GM) techniques to make foods and farm crops – so-called ‘GM 2.0’ – are fully covered by existing safety laws.

Immediately after the ruling, the European Commission must quickly get its act together and ensure crops produced from new GM techniques are safety-checked and labelled, otherwise it will face public backlash and regulatory problems.

If the court’s ruling follows its Advocate General’s opinion as expected, it is likely to suggest that most food and crops derived from GM 2.0 techniques would be classified as GMOs.

However, this doesn’t automatically mean that they will be subject to the same safety checks that cover first-wave GMOs.

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