September 7th 2023, European Parliament, Brussels
More than 200 representatives from European national and regional governments, municipalities, farmer’s, food and environmental NGOs, science and business people met live and online at the European Parliament to discuss the EU Commissions proposal to deregulate the Unions legislation on genetic engineering in food and agriculture. Their unanimous verdict: This proposal is unacceptable. It was scientifically flawed and intentionally misleading about the scope and risks of GMOs, ignoring the majority of European citizens clear demand for transparency and labelling of GM food and feed and opening the gates for even more corporate control of the seed market by imposing patents on their CRISPRed traits and varieties.
Members of the Parliament as well as the Austrian minister for environment and climate and the environment secretary of state of Lower Saxony promised to do their best to prevent the industry driven near total deregulation approach of the proposal. The file is now being discussed in the Parliaments environmental and agricultural committees and the Council of agricultural ministers. The organisers regretted that neither the Commission nor the Spanish presidency nor the European Peoples Party, holding the report in the leading environment committee were willing to send representatives to defend their concept and to listen to critique.
We want to thank all speakers and participants for their contribution to the success of the conference.
