European retailers take a strong stand against deregulating new GMOs

On 26 May 2021, European retailers took a strong stand against deregulating new GMOs in a joint resolution. One of the demands in the resolution isto uphold the 2018 European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling stating that all products stemming from the new genetic engineering methods, such as CRISPR/Cas, TALENs and others, must be classified as GMOs, in the same manner as previous GMOs.

This resolution was published following the publication of the European Commission study on new genomic techniques published end of April 2021, that Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides worryingly welcomed with the following words “New genomic techniques can promote the sustainability of agricultural production, in line with the objectives of our farm to fork strategy”.

Among the signatories are ALDI, LIDL, as well as IFOAM Organics Europe members Dennree, Synadis bio, Alnatura, and Naturata.

Organisers of this resolution are the European non-GMO industry association (ENGA), the Verband Lebensmittel Ohne Gentechnik (VLOG), and ARGE Gentechnik-Frei.