Brus­sels, 19 Decem­ber 2025 – A qual­i­fied major­i­ty of EU Mem­ber States today backed the dereg­u­la­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) plants pro­duced using so-called new genom­ic tech­niques (NGTs). Aus­tria, Bel­gium, Bul­gar­ia, Croa­t­ia, Ger­many, Hun­gary, Roma­nia, Slo­va­kia, and Slove­nia did not indi­cate sup­port dur­ing this morning’s meet­ing of the Com­mit­tee of Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (COREPER) in Brus­sels.

In the night of 3 to 4 Decem­ber, nego­tia­tors from the EU Par­lia­ment, Coun­cil of Min­is­ters and Com­mis­sion reached an agree­ment on a far-reach­ing dereg­u­la­tion of plants engi­neered with new GM tech­niques such as CRISPR/Cas. Under the deal, almost all require­ments of EU GMO leg­is­la­tion would be abol­ished for this type of GM plants.

Berlin, 2 Decem­ber 2025 — An alliance of envi­ron­men­tal and farm­ing organ­i­sa­tions protest­ed today out­side the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery against plans to dereg­u­late genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied plants cre­at­ed with new genet­ic mod­i­fi­ca­tion (GM) tech­niques. The groups urged the Ger­man gov­ern­ment to reject any deal emerg­ing from tomorrow’s EU tri­logue nego­ti­a­tions unless essen­tial safe­guards are includ­ed.