Poland Seeks to Break EU Deadlock on NGT Proposal

ISAAA January 30, 2025

As governments in Europe are yet to agree on the proposal for new genomic techniques (NGT), Poland seeks to move forward from the stringent EU licensing and traceability requirements, according to documents.

A week after it took over the chair of intergovernmental policy talks as holder of the rotating EU Council presidency, Warsaw wants to discard Hungary's call to reopen the entire policy discussion – reverting instead to an earlier outline of the definition and focusing on the patent issue. Government delegates will meet to discuss this Polish proposal in Brussels this month. Agreement at the ministerial level is needed before the Council can enter final negotiations with the European Parliament.

In July 2023, the European Commission proposed that crops created using NGTs should be excluded from strict regulation under the 2001 GMO Regulation, but governments have been unable to agree on how exactly to define such products, and whether they should be patentable.

For more details, read the article in EuroNews.