Bulgaria has abstained from voting on a proposed EU regulation on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques and their food and feed. The country's position on the draft regulation was presented by Agriculture and Food Minister Kiril Vatev at a meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels on Monday. Vatev was quoted by his ministry as saying that the Bulgarian stance takes into account the sensitive nature of the matter in his country.
The European Commission presented the draft of the regulation on July 5 as part of a legislative package aimed to increase the resilience of EU agriculture and food systems and to promote food security. Monday's Agriculture and Fisheries Council failed to achieve consensus on the regulation.
Vatev told journalists in Brussels that the new genomic techniques should not be viewed as GMO techniques. He expects climate change and market competition to draw the attention of farmers and consumers to the scientific achievements of certain new genomic techniques.
"We all want our food to be clean, with a lower content of pesticides, plant protection products and fertilizers, and to be resistant to climate change," Vatev said. He noted that work on the regulation continues, and the market will certainly encourage all agricultural producers and consumers to embrace new genomic techniques which have already yielded very interesting results as described in world science.
A technology developed by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020, paved the way for the treatment of over 7,000 genetic disorders and chronic diseases, Vatev said. He noted that a tomato variety created in Japan by gene editing and released into the market earlier in 2023 regulates blood pressure and neuronal activity in humans.
/RY/
