BIOVEGEN welcomes the support of the European Parliament for the new legislation on NGT plants in the European Union

BIOVEGEN welcomes the support of the European Parliament for the new legislation on NGT plants in the European Union

BIOVEGEN welcomes the support of the European Parliament for the adoption of a new legislation for plants obtained through new genomic techniques (NGT) in the European Union.

On February 7, MEPs approved, with 307 votes in favor, 263 against and 41 abstentions, the legislative proposal ON plants obtained through new genomic techniques. This new legislative proposal - promoted by the European Commission - simplifies the authorization procedure for those plants that reproduce changes that occur spontaneously in nature (but in a faster and more targeted way, accelerating processes and reducing times), to which he calls NGT1, and brings them closer to the regime of plants generated through conventional breeding methods such as traditional mutagenesis. 

The vote has also been in favor of proposing several amendments to the text presented by the Commission. Among other things, it has been proposed to include a ban on registering patents on plants obtained with NGT (the plant material, its parts, the genetic information and the characteristics of the process they contain), although the Parliamentary Chamber considers that further studies will be necessary and reports to specify the compatibility of this requirement with other regulations, as well as its potential impact on access to reproductive material. On the other hand, in line with the Commission's text, the parliamentary majority has voted in favor of banning NGT crops in organic farming. 

Once the parliamentary process has been completed, the time now opens in which the Member States, represented in the Council, will seek a consensus on the approval of the text and, where appropriate, will propose new amendments. If it is successful, approval in the Council will be the penultimate stage, only in the absence of the trilogues. In the latter, representatives of the Commission, Parliament and the Council, in view of the amendments presented, will negotiate the final version of the regulation.

From BIOVEGEN, plant innovation ecosystem which brings together 185 companies and plant R&D centers, we believe that the NGT will help the European agri-food system to be more sustainable, productive, resistant to increasingly evident climate variations and pests, allowing the European Union to compete on an equal footing. of conditions with the rest of the producing countries worldwide.

BIOVEGEN considers these advances a victory for science and the European agri-food sector, and we will continue to provide our support to scientists, companies and administration, as well as the rest of the sector actors involved.