Legislation for plants produced by certain new genomic techniques

The IA argues that existing GMO legislation is not fit for purpose for plants and their food and feed products developed using certain new genomic techniques (NGTs) and that their resulting limited uptake in the EU might lead to missed opportunities to reach the EU's sustainability objectives. It suggests four policy options (POs) in addition to the baseline and assesses their economic, environmental and social/health impacts. The assessment is predominantly qualitative and is based on the stakeholders' views, in addition to the scientific literature, expert views and a number of JRC studies. The IA selects a combination of PO4 ('notification') for products that could occur naturally or be produced by conventional breeding, with PO2 ('authorisation with incentives') for all other products. It justifies the choice of the preferred option as being the most coherent and proportional, best able to deliver the objectives and with positive impact in terms of innovation and developer interest. However, the IA could have been clearer in highlighting the preferred sub-options, namely the treatment of NGTs for the purposes of organic production and labelling of NGT products subject to PO2. While the IA underlines the expected benefits for SMEs, it does not assess impacts on SMEs involved in organic/GM-free production separately. The IA consistently refers to the stakeholders' opinions and points to the high interest shown by the large number of responses to the consultation activities, but the various stakeholders' support for the initiative is not evident, and the stakeholders' views appear to diverge considerably.