Public participation in the assessment of the “new genetic engineering” will continue for another week. However, the role played by the European Commission has drawn criticism from environmental organisations.
It is about a process that is commonly referred to as “NEW genetic engineering”, sometimes also “green genetic engineering”, and is known to experts as “Crispr/Cas9”. In contrast to conventional genetic engineering methods, cells from another organism are not incorporated into a plant, but with Crispr/Cas9 a property of the plant is switched on or off through a targeted intervention.
What sounds simple is in reality not, because many such interventions are required in scientific practice, for example to increase resistance to heat. Critics say: the more interventions, the more uncertain the result, because the complexity of natural processes is not fully understood. It remains unclear what is unknowingly set in motion by such interventions on switches.
It was probably this background that made the European Court of Justice decide four years ago that the same rules should also apply to the new genetic engineering process as have been mandatory for genetic engineering in the EU up to now. This applies above all to the marking. The food industry, on the other hand, is up in arms.