On March 14, 2025, the Committee of the Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States to the European Union (Coreper) endorsed the Council's negotiating mandate on the regulation of plants obtained by new genomic techniques (NGTs). The EU Proposal, launched in July 2023, aims to boost innovation and sustainability within the EU agrifood sector while contributing to food security and reducing external dependencies.

The new legislation aims to adapt the EU rules to the technological developments of the past decades. The main changes agreed by the Council include the following:

• Cultivation and presence of NGT plants: Member states can opt-out and decide to prohibit the cultivation of category 2 NGT plants on their territory, take measures to avoid the unintended presence of category 2 NGT plants in other products, and adopt measures to avoid the unintended presence of category 1 NGT plants in organic farming on their territories.
• Category 1 NGT plants and patenting: To ensure transparency, breeders must submit information on all existing or pending patents, and for the information to be included in a publicly available database set up by the Commission listing all NGT plants under category 1 status. 
• Labeling: To ensure consumer access to accurate and comprehensive information, category 2 NGT plants must contain a label indicating them as such, and for the label to include all relevant traits. 
• Traits: The Council negotiating mandate states that herbicide tolerance cannot be one of the traits for category 1 NGT plants. 

The agreement on the Council's negotiating mandate allows its presidency to start negotiations with the European Parliament about the final text of the regulation. The final outcome needs to be formally adopted by the Council and the Parliament before the regulation can enter into force.

For more details, read the Coreper press release.