Implementation by Member States of the obligations laid down in Directive 2001/18/EC and Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 on non-exempt mutagenesis-related techniques

15.10.2018

Question for written answer E-005280-18
to the Commission
Rule 130
Thomas Waitz (Verts/ALE) , Maria Heubuch (Verts/ALE) , Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) , Marco Affronte (Verts/ALE) , Martin Häusling (Verts/ALE)

The Court of Justice’s judgment (Grand Chamber) of 25 July 2018 in Case C-528/16, disputed between the Confédération paysanne and others and the French prime minister and minister for agriculture, the food processing industry and forestry, concluded that under EC law, all mutagenesis-related techniques are to be considered tantamount to using GMOs, and that only techniques with a long history of safe use should be exempt.

Consequently, all mutagenesis-related techniques developed since Directive 2001/18/EC entered into force cannot be considered exempt. However, several cases show that the experimental cultivation of crops obtained through some of these techniques (notably oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis and CRISPR/Cas9) has been permitted outside of the GMO framework by certain Member States, namely Sweden, the United Kingdom and Belgium.

How will the Commission ensure that Member States abide by the rules laid down in Directive 2001/18/EC and Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 concerning any deliberate release (such as field trials, commercial cultivation, commercialisation and imports) of crops and products obtained through any of the non-exempt mutagenesis-related techniques?