ECVC denounces a biased consultation process that does not allow to express opposition to the European Commission's initiative to deregulate new genomic techniques, which is to be adopted in the course of the year 2023. Indeed, the formulation of the great majority of the questions in this consultation forces us to accept the possibility of abandoning the current GMO legislation. Moreover, this consultation is based on erroneous legal presuppositions, inaccurate or unfounded information, which we detail in this analysis document.

ECVC represents 31 organizations of European small and medium farmers and peasants, and defends their rights to save, use, exchange and sell their seeds and to practice GMO-free agriculture. These rights are directly threatened by any weakening of the rules on risk assessment, traceability and labelling of GMOs derived from these new techniques. 

Under these conditions, ECVC simply cannot participate in a consultation that makes it impossible to express our position. ECVC also denounces the refusal of the Commission, which organizes this consultation, to take into account the impact of intellectual property rights (patents) on the agricultural sector and the peasants’ rights to seeds. 

Furthermore, during the previous consultation on the same subject, ECVC had indicated, together with a majority of stakeholders and more than 60,000 citizens, that we categorically refuse any abandonment of this regulation. The European Commission has obviously not taken these opinions into account, which also questions the usefulness of this type of consultation if dissenting views are systematically ignored. 

In protest against this biased consultation process, clearly influenced by seed and biotech industries’ insterests, ECVC calls for a mobilization against this attack on the rights of farmers and citizens to GMO-free food and agriculture. ECVC invites to sign the petition Keep New GMOs regulated and labeled! launched by more than 45 European organizations, which has already collected more than 85.000 signatures. 

Contact :

Alessandra Turco – ECVC Coordinating Committee: + 39 3476427170 (IT, ES)

Guy Kastler – ECVC Seeds Working Group: +33 603945721 (FR)

Antonio Onorati – ECVC Seeds Working Group: +39 3408219456 (EN, FR, IT, ES)

If you have any questions for the ECVC office, please contact Cloé Mathurin, ECVC Seeds Working Group Coordinator: cloe@eurovia.org