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When the European seed industry holds its
annual meeting on October 10-12,
the European Seed Association
(ESA) will welcome five new member states. Hungary, Poland, the
Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia, which became European
Union members earlier this year, will join ESA. Besides this
festive event however, some serious topics need to be discussed.
All in all about five hundred delegates are expected in
Brussels, Belgium.
A legislative loophole
“Europe is finding itself in a legislative
loophole”, agrees Garlich von Essen, Director Public Affairs of
ESA. “The differences with the USA regarding GMOs are still not
solved. The WTO is still processing the claims and many assume
that the US will win. However, on the positive side, some
progress is being made.” Two weeks ago, the varieties that were
accepted before the ‘moratorium’ have finally been placed on the
common catalogue, ending an illegal situation.
Thresholds for adventitious presence
The remaining discussion is the thresholds
for adventitious presence of GMOs in conventionally grown
produce, as the issue of labelling has been solved earlier. It
has been an ongoing debate for more than five years between the
seed companies and the EU government. Last month the European
Commission again postponed voting on this topic. “But as we will
have a completely new Commission shortly, our hopes are that the
matter will finally be resolved during the next few months.
Also, as more and more people agree that the regulation must be
practical, the outcome hopefully will be more favourable to the
seed industry. The proposal discussed earlier would have fixed
the thresholds at 0.3% for GMOs authorised for cultivation in
the EU.”
As Director Public Affairs, von Essen is
responsible for monitoring the political developments within the
EU. He expects the newly appointed European Commissioners to be
more realistic and decisive in coping with the agricultural
issues. “But agriculture is definitely not a trendy business in
Europe. And it does not help when some politicians publicly
discredit agricultural biotechnologies.” A side effect is that,
throughout Europe, fewer students are motivated to study
agriculture and plant sciences, and this weakens the branch from
within.
Biodiversity
Another important topic under discussion at
the ESA meeting will be the biodiversity issue. It is often hard
for politicians to understand the implications for the seed
industry. Most Europeans are in favour of ‘benefit sharing’, but
they base their conclusions on their appreciation of the
situation in the pharmaceutical industry.
“Free access to medicines is a popular demand
and many find it hard to accept that this access is regulated
and limited by Intellectual Property Rights. With seed companies
the situation is completely different. Plant Breeder’s Rights as
applied in Europe allow everyone to use the final products in
their own breeding programmes. Of course, the breeder of the
original variety may charge the subsequent breeder, provided his
material is included in a new variety and it represents an
essentially derived variety (edv), but he may not deny access as
such. Legislation should therefore facilitate access as well as
guarantee the necessary reward for breeding and development.. We
have to make politicians and the public note that point.”
Plant Breeder's Rights vs. patents
The third topic von Essen mentions is the
different view of Europeans and Americans regarding the tools
used for the protection of intellectual property. Generally
speaking, Europeans are in favour of Plant Breeder’s Rights
since the UPOV Convention is properly implemented and patent
protection for plant varieties is excluded under the European
Patent Convention, while in North America patenting is more
popular. “Some think that the use of new technologies also
warrant a new approach to intellectual property protection. On
the other hand, our European approach to IP protection has a
proven track record as regards the development of new
varieties.”
Variety testing and listing
Another issue the European seed companies
face is the variety testing and listing. “With governments
contributing less and less and an expanding European Union, we
have to consider how testing may be organised in the future. Our
concern is the quality of the data and the way these tests are
supervised. At the same time the costs of testing should be
realistic. This discussion is just starting in Europe.” |
