European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) denounces "strategic error for Europe’s food and seed sovereignty"

In today’s COREPER meeting, a majority of EU Member States approved the provisional trilogue agreement on the deregulation of plant GMOs obtained by new genomic techniques (GMOs-NGTs). European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) said the move "ignores farmers’ and small and medium-sized seed producers’ concerns on patents, farmers’ rights on seeds, the protection of organic and GMO-free sectors, consumers' right to information, and the risks for human health and the environment. A group of 8 countries (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) have recognised those legitimate concerns and did not support this dangerous text."

ECVC, representing small and medium-scale farmers, denounced the decision as a "strategic error for Europe’s food and seed sovereignty and the future of EU agriculture, which will only benefit to a handful of patent-holding seed corporations, reduce agrobiodiversity, increase the prices of seeds for farmers, and deceive consumers by removing the labelling of final products". ECVC continued: "The recent provisional agreement resulting from the trilogue on this file has not brought any solution to the many issues raised by the proposal on GMO-NGTs. Without traceability requirement for crops and products and requirements to publish detection and identification methods, farmers and traditional seed producers will be completely unprotected in case of accidental contaminations or of pursuits for patent infringement, including for patents abusively extending to native traits present in traditional seeds."

ECVC added: "The final trilogue agreement completely ignores the strong position taken by the European Parliament, which recognised in February 2024 that patents are harmful for European farmers and small and medium seed companies, and called for a restriction of the scope of patents on GMOs-NGTs to protect them from their abusive extension to seeds and traits obtained by non-patentable conventional breeding processes.

Alessandra Turco from ECVC’s Coordinating Committee said: “The approval of this proposal relies on empty promises on the alleged sustainability of NGT crops, which is not backed by any scientific evidence nor by their availability on the market. The only motivation behind this proposal is to impose the patent model in Europe, forcing farmers to buy patented GMOs every year and allowing the privatisation of all seeds, including traditional and peasant seeds. Those last two days, farmers were protesting to defend their income, threatened by the EU-MERCOSUR free trade agreement. Forcing farmers to buy patented GMOs-NGTs will do nothing to improve their economic situation, on the contrary it will severely threaten the GMO-free and organic sectors, which are well established in Europe.”

ECVC said: "The proposal is not yet adopted: the provisional agreement still needs to be approved by the European Parliament in early 2026. ECVC calls on all MEPs to vote in the best interest of citizens, farmers, small and medium seed companies and other operators from the GMO-free and organic sector, and to reject this harmful agreement.
 
"The strong political signal sent by the European Parliament on patents has not been respected in the final deal, which only contains symbolic and non-binding promises: the only option is to reject it."

Source: ECVC