About EBSA Thursday

New Genomic Techniques – safely managing innovation in times of legal uncertainty

The third of 5 online, member only, meetings in 2021

In 2008 the European GMO competent authorities established a working group to determine if organisms modified by new techniques would be subject of the GMO legislation. Ten years later, after a bumpy procedural road, the European Court of Justice indicated that organisms obtained by mutagenesis are GMOs and that only those obtained by conventional mutagenesis techniques are exempted from the GMO legislation. This legal interpretation triggered a fierce debate with all parties agreeing that the definitions included the 90’ies GMO legislation were outdated.

Recently the European Commission issued a report confirming the need for some kind of reform. At the same time a public consultation on in vitro random mutagenesis techniques is open, in which the EFSA GMO Panel concludes that the distinction between plants obtained by in vitro or in vivo approaches is not justified.

How can biosafety professionals contribute to this debate? Is legal unpredictability affecting our work and innovation in general?

Contributors:

• Nick Vangheluwe
  Research project assistant; Euroseeds
  
  
  
  
  
• Marjan Bovers
  Scientific Secretary Agricultural Aspects; The Netherlands Commission on Genetic Modification (COGEM) 
  
  
  
  
• Younousse Saidi
  Senior Government Affairs Manager - Seeds & Traits from BASF
  
  
  

Moderator

Moderator: Patrick Rüdelsheim
Side-kick: Nathalie Feltes

Program: