Slow Food deplores the new GMOs deregulation voted today by European Parliament

“Today, the European Parliament has voted in favour of a vaste deregulation of new GMOs, removing the mandatory safety checks and weakening traceability and labelling rules compared to the ones they must follow currently under the GMO regulation. If today’s vote by the European Parliament is endorsed by the Council of the EU, products containing new GMOs will no longer be labelled as GMOs but as “New Genomic Techniques”. Opposition to this deregulation has been raised by multiple stakeholder groups, including by Slow Food cooks’ in a statement against New GMOs published last week. Several scientific institutions have also called for maintaining safety assessments due to the risks that new GMOs present. In the last weeks, we have also heard farmers across Europe calling for fair revenues and conditions; in response, EU politicians are moving forward with replacing regulation with techno-fixes that are giving more power to the pesticide and biotechnology industry. It is absurd and misleading to claim that this deregulation will help make food systems more sustainable. We urge European ministers to call for following the precautionary principle, and protecting transparency and freedom of choice in the Council discussions.” Marta Messa, Secretary General of Slow Food.  

Read more:

• Slow Food. Deregulating New Gmos means no freedom of choice and disastrous impacts on farmers and biodiversity
• Slow Food Policy Brief on the European Commission’s proposal on “New Genomic Techniques”