| | 24/January/24
| | EU Environment MEPs scrap safety checks, labelling and liability for new GMOs Today, members of the Environment Committee (ENVI) of the European Parliament removed the new generation of genetically modified organisms (new GMOs, so-called “New Genomic Techniques” or NGT) from any type of safety checks, labelling requirements and liability processes, Friends of the Earth Europe reports. The vote’s outcome shows EU conservative and most liberal parliamentarians’ disregard for the right of consumers and farmers to know what they eat and grow in their fields. It also raises the alarm about the undue influence of big agribusiness like Bayer, which spends 6 million euros lobbying per year, seeking to expand their control over the food sector. Mute Schimpf of Friends of the Earth Europe said: "Today’s outcome is a slap in the face for farmers and consumers. The Environment Committee’s position carelessly ignores basic citizens’ rights and nature protection principles to bow to industry lobbies, but there is still time to act. We urge all EU parliamentarians to put the final nail in the coffin of this absurd deregulation proposal in the plenary vote." Friends of the Earth Europe via GMWatch MEP backing for GMO deregulation threatens rights of farmers The European Commission proposal on new GMOs and amendments supported today by the European Parliament’s environment committee risk violating the rights of farmers and consumers, according to new legal analysis by Greenpeace. The proposed law does not provide sufficient protection against the contamination of crops with new GMOs, which are obtained through so-called new genomic techniques (NGTs). Greenpeace EU GMO campaigner Eva Corral said: “Decades of progress in the EU on farmers’ rights, and protecting people’s health and the environment, should not be scrapped for the sake of biotech industry profits. Safety measures do not hinder innovation, nor do current rules that apply to GMOs. EU law does not prohibit research and development: it aims to ensure that what is developed does not breach EU citizens’ rights to health and environmental protection.” Greenpeace via GMWatch Betrayal of the Green Deal to please the likes of Bayer and BASF Today’s vote in the EP Environment Committee on the deregulation of New GMOs (NGTs) is the next betrayal of the EU Green Deal in the European Parliament, after the SUR debacle (pesticide reduction) and Nature Restoration Law (NRL), Corporate Europe Observatory says. Too many MEPs have shamefully fallen for the years long corporate lobby campaign. The EP ENVI committee has made the already bad proposal of DG SANTE even worse. Rapporteur Polfjard introduced an unvalidated, even more radical deregulation approach based on the advice of a single professor. Corporate Europe Observatory via GMWatch ENGA statement on European Parliament ENVI Committee vote on NGTs In a bleak day, both for citizens’ right to know what is in the food they are eating and for the food industry, the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee has voted to refuse the right to know whether New GMOs (or NGTs) are in food or in value chains, writes the Non-GMO industry organisation ENGA. The draft law, should it be approved after trilogue between Council, Commission and Parliament, will mean that there will be no transparency and labelling of New GMOs (New Genomic Techniques, such as CRISPR/Cas) in feed and food. ENGA – on behalf of the Non-GMO food industry – calls on the European Parliament to postpone its plenary vote, scheduled for early in February, given the lack of time to debate the many remaining open questions. ENGA via GMWatch Expert condemns “Laureates’ letter” supporting GMO deregulation as “devoid of scientific substance” and “insulting” The ecomodernist lobby group WePlanet (formerly RePlanet) is promoting an open letter it organised that has been signed by “35 Nobel Laureates and over 1,000 scientists” calling on MEPs to push through the deregulation of new GM techniques (NGTs) that is being proposed by the European Commission and some MEPs. Molecular geneticist and expert in genetic engineering technologies Professor Michael Antoniou sent an emailed response to an EU media outlet that ran an article on the letter, but it was not published. Prof Antoniou has given GMWatch permission to publish a slightly shortened version. In his response to the Laureates' letter, which he calls “devoid of scientific substance” and “insulting”, he says “grave concerns” about the deregulation proposals are fully justified and not remotely “anti-science”. GMWatch Drastic changes in species-specific characteristics in CRISPR GMO poplar A review of the data in current publications shows that the cultivation of plants obtained from new genetic engineering (NGT or New GE) can be used to drastically alter the species-specific characteristics of poplar trees. No additional genes need to be inserted and the trees do not have to produce new or altered proteins. Poplar trees only begin to flower in nature after seven to ten years, but in experiments, after gene scissors-based interventions, they flowered after just four months. Only minor changes in the regulatory genes were necessary to achieve such results. Testbiotech via GMWatch GMWatch Reviews published For those who don't subscribe to our Reviews, the two latest are now published: the one on New GMOs (the news preceding today's vote, above) is here; and the one on GMOs in general is here. You can subscribe to the Reviews here. It's free. 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