Overview
- The European Parliament voted on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, to authorise a narrow set of new genomic techniques that edit plant DNA without inserting foreign genes and to create a Category 1 class treated as equivalent to conventional varieties for market rules.
- Category 1 plants must be declared on seed bags but will not carry retail labels, and the law bans edits that confer herbicide resistance or that produce insecticidal traits and forbids any use of these techniques in organic farming.
- Amendments aimed at tightening patent rules were rejected, prompting critics to warn that the move risks concentrating seed patents among a few large multinationals and exposing small breeders and farmers to legal and economic pressure.
- Scientific agencies are split on the approach: the European Food Safety Authority supported authorising part of NGT while France’s Anses urged case-by-case risk assessments and stronger post-market surveillance because current traceability tests are limited.
- Commercial rollout will take years because edited varieties must be tested and approved, implementation must define monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, and the change marks a major shift from the EU’s long‑standing 2001 GMO framework towards a more permissive, regulated model.