No agreement on new genomic techniques. In Brussels, Lollobrigida teams up with Austria and France against cultured food

Brussels – No majority and therefore no agreement on new genomic techniques. Disagreement today (Dec. 11) at the ongoing EU Council of Agriculture and Fisheries (Agrifish) meeting in Brussels on the European Commission’s proposal to create a new legal framework to protect so-called “new genomic techniques”, that is, technologies that alter an organism’s genetic material and enable the production of “improved” varieties of plants and crops that can therefore be more resistant to climate, pests, require less fertilizer and pesticides, or provide higher yields.

The proposal came last July 5 from Brussels with the idea of loosening the rules by which plants and crops produced by cisgenesis and mutagenesis are placed on the EU market. European agriculture ministers were expected to adopt the political mandate at the last EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council under Spain’s presidency at the helm of the EU, which will leave the reins of the EU to Belgium’s presidency from January 1.

“We are close to reaching an agreement on the general approach, but there is still not the necessary majority to get there,” summed up Spain’s Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, as he chaired the meeting and closed the round of the ministers’ table. The Madrid minister assured that the Spanish presidency will work “constructively until the end of the mandate, to bring” the future Belgian presidency, which takes office Jan. 1, to “a conclusion under the best conditions.”
The majority required for agreement is qualified, which is achieved when 55 percent of member states vote in favor (15 out of 27 countries) and member states supporting the proposal represent at least 65 percent of the total EU population.

During the public session at the EU Council on the file, Romania, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Luxembourg, and Slovenia declared their intention to vote against, while Germany and Bulgaria declared their intention to abstain (and abstention is equivalent to a vote against for qualified majority purposes). With nothing left to do, the text now passes to the incoming Belgian presidency, which will take office on January 1.

For Italy, the debate on new genomic techniques is “a step that evolves the theme of the green revolution, seeking to place,” alongside traditional agricultural techniques, “techniques that enable the strengthening of crops that can meet the challenge of production and sustainability,” said Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, reiterating in public session Italy’s support for the Spanish presidency’s compromise proposal, calling it “sufficiently balanced”.

According to the minister, moreover, plants obtained from the new genomic techniques “are key to improving production processes in agriculture and contributing to food security and sovereignty that we now consider endangered”, also because of the crises “that are multiplying.” For the country, the new genomic techniques are “totally and scientifically different from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a path; the data show a process in line with the tradition also Italian tradition of maintaining the quality” of crops. The regulatory framework proposed by Brussels covers only plants produced by targeted mutagenesis (which induces mutations in the plant’s genome without adding foreign genetic material) and by cisgenesis (which involves the insertion of genetic material into an organism from a sexually compatible donor). It does not, however, cover plants obtained by transgenesis, that is, the introduction of genetic material from a non-inbreeding species, which remains “regulated” by the current rules on GMOs.

Italy teams up with Austria and France against cultured meat

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On the sidelines of the proceedings, Lollobrigida told reporters that at the initiative of the Austrian minister, Norbert Totschnig, and with the French minister, Marc Fesneau, he had taken part in a meeting “to talk about a common position on the issue of cultured foods.” Last month, Italy passed a bill to ban the production and sale of “synthetic foods and feeds,” although no in vitro or laboratory-grown products have been authorized for marketing in Europe for the time being.

The minister did not provide many details about the initiative, but explained that the government in Vienna “has asked Italy and France to draw up a joint document involving other colleagues on the relationship between food and nature, which we believe is an important issue but, as we had pointed out, Europe not only listens to us but is very sensitive to the same issues that have involved Italian politics and our fellow citizens,” he concluded.