Farmers, scientists, civil society organisations – including CIDSE – and concerned citizens gathered in Brussels yesterday ahead of a vote in the European Parliament that will start the final phase of negotiations on a controversial draft EU law on a new type of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The demonstrators called on Members of the European Parliament to adhere to the principles of transparency and safety checks in the application of new genetic engineering (NGT).
Deregulation ignores the risks to people’s health and the environment and threatens the freedom of choice of consumers and farmers. The European Commission’s legislative proposal proposes to largely exempt NGT crops from existing GMO legislation. This means that there would no longer be a need for mandatory risk assessments, traceability or labelling.
“Any caving in by the European Parliament to the big agribusiness lobby is very bad news for millions of small farmers and consumers in the Global South. Many Southern governments often look to the EU for their own regulations, as the latter is known to seriously protect and uphold the freedom of choice of its farmers and consumers” said Jose Emmanuel Yap, CIDSE’s Food and Land Policy Officer.
He added: “the spread of NGTs, like the proliferation of traditional GMOs, will further weaken the ongoing struggle of many farmers’ movements in the Global South for seed sovereignty, as they develop their own seeds that yield reasonably well and adapt to climate change without the use of expensive external and hazardous chemical inputs produced by these big TNCs.”
The European Parliament must remain consistent
In 2024, the European Parliament expressed its views on the importance of safety checks and transparency on NGT crops and highlighted the need for:
- Evaluation and monitoring of environmental risks of NGT-crops.
- Full traceability and labelling, so that farmers and consumers can make an informed choice.
- A ban on NGT crops in organic farming and the protection of organic and conventional agricultural crops and wild plants from contamination by NGT crops.
- A ban on patents for NGT crops.
The European Parliament must not deny its own arguments and principles during the negotiations on the final legislative proposal and must continue to defend the interests of citizens, farmers and biodiversity.
Additional information
- New GMOs: sorting spin from facts, Greenpeace Europe media briefing, April 2025
- Joint civil society statement on the deregulation of new GMOs :“Protect the business of small and medium size breeders, farmers, and the organic and non GMO sectors in the EU”, February 2025
- “GGO’s: accepteert U een ‘race to the bottom’, Ministers?”, Broederlijk Delen, February 2025
CIDSE contact: Jose Emmanuel Yap, Food and Land Officer (yap(at)cidse.org)
Cover photo, civil society demonstration in front of the European Parliament, 7 April 2025. Credit: Friends of the Earth-Europe.