Global Plant Council statement on the regulation of gene-edited plants

ECJ judgment: EU Member States may not adopt emergency measures regarding genetically modified food and feed unless it is evident that there is a serious risk to health or the environment
October 1, 2017
According to Advocate General Bobek, organisms obtained by mutagenesis are, in principle, exempted from the obligations in the Genetically Modified Organisms Directive.
January 18, 2018

Executive Summary: The advent of gene editing as a plant breeding method presents important opportunities for making very precise changes in genomes to obtain desired traits or remove undesirable traits. As with all newly developed plants, plants with genetic changes obtained through genome editing are subject to existing plant-variety development systems. In as far as those genetic changes are indistinguishable from what can be obtained using conventional strategies, we recommend the resulting plants are subject only to existing systems for variety development. Only when genetic changes go well beyond what can be obtained with conventional breeding strategies might the resulting plants also be subject to biosafety (e.g. GMO) regulations.

The full statement can be downloaded here.