The current Belgian EU presidency states that at the earliest it will ask the EU countries for a position and vote in June. Since the European Parliament (EP) will then be on election recess, the final negotiations will in any case be postponed until autumn.
At the end of last year, the previous Spanish EU presidency also failed to get the 27 EU countries aligned on this proposal.
The biggest stumbling block is the question of whether the lightest form of genetic editing (the so-called Crispr-Cas scissors technique) should also be allowed in organic farming, and whether such editing should always be indicated on the label.
Promotion
It has also not yet been determined whether (chemical) companies can apply for patents on NGT-modified sowing and seed potatoes. It is also not yet decided whether the Crispr-Cas scissors will only be allowed for a limited number of agricultural products, or for all.
The European Parliament stated in February that new labeling will be necessary because NGT editing, according to EU politicians, must be kept out of organic farming. That position is supported by a (blocking) minority of EU countries, but certainly not by all.
It is not entirely surprising that the proposal for the accelerated approval of new GMO techniques threatens to stall. At the beginning of last year, the proposal was - under pressure from the Christian Democratic EPP in the European Parliament - linked to the SUR proposal for reducing the use of chemical agents in agriculture.
The latter proposal was subsequently weakened last year under pressure from several EU countries and the center-right majority of the European Parliament to such an extent that the initial supporters withdrew their final support for the pesticide plan. As a result, it disappeared - quite exceptionally - from the EU's agendas.
Something similar now threatens to happen with the NGT proposal, as well as with the also criticized Nature Restoration Law, the updating of the animal welfare law, the proposal for an EU directive against soil pollution, and the still pending Forest Law.