The European Commission plans to create specific legislation to facilitate the production of genetically edited crops, following the July 2018 European Court of Justice decision that gene-edited crops should be regulated as GMOs. The Community Executive is considering developing a “new framework appropriate to the new genomic techniques”, as it appears in the draft Action Plan on food that has been accessed by eldiario.es.
This measure contained in the “preliminary version” of the plan would free genetically edited organisms from the limitations of stricter regulation.
“The organisms obtained by mutagenesis are genetically modified and, in principle, subject to the same obligations contained in the same directive,” the judges wrote. This sentence was received with stupor by some scientists and celebrated by environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace who argue that the “precautionary principle” should guarantee “that conventional and ecological products cannot be contaminated with new GMOs.”
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Spanish and has been translated and lightly edited for clarity.]
Read full, original article: Europe plans to facilitate the genetic edition of crops after the ruling that equated them with GM
