Draft French Decree on Mutagenesis Breeding, Consequent Draft Lists of Banned Herbicide Tolerant Rapeseed Varieties

Urgency to Review Dir. 2001/18, An Obsolete Regulation Which Ignores the Current State of Knowledge

The stacking of so many interpretations clearly shows how ambiguous and imprecise the existing text of the GMO Directive 2001/18/CE is. In addition, the directive doesn’t contain provisions of its own updating as regards the current state of scientific knowledge.

Moreover, the French case described above shows its further implementation may lead to a non-harmonized EU regulatory framework where member states may potentially use their leeway to require additional conditions for marketing products that were so far exempted from the obligations of the GMO Directive. It clearly has negative impacts for the internal market as well as the international one.

UFS with 28 other national partners definitely consider this obsolete regulation must be revised as soon as the EU Commission has completed its ongoing study on “New genomic Techniques” by April 2021.

Editor’s Note: Emmanuel Lesprit is Head of the Plant Breeding Unit at the Union Française des Semenciers (UFS).