EU Environment Committee votes in favor • Table.Briefings

For Jessica Polfjärd, the EPP MEP responsible, the ENVI vote is a success.

The EU Parliament’s Environment Committee has voted in favor of relaxing EU genetic engineering legislation. The plenary vote will follow at the beginning of February. MEPs are calling for patents on genetically modified plants and seeds to be banned.

On Wednesday, MEPs on the EU Environment Committee (ENVI) voted 47 to 31 in favor of liberalizing the European legal framework for new breeding techniques. The vote in the parliamentary plenary is scheduled to take place between Feb. 5-8. In contrast to the original Commission proposal, the committee includes a clause stating that plants and plant material obtained using new genetic engineering techniques and their genetic material cannot be patented. With the additional clause, rapporteur Jessica Polfjärd (EPP) addressed critics who feared that the reform could lead to more patents and less diversity in the seed market.

EU Environment Committee votes in favor of deregulation of new breeding techniques

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