New EU Gene-Edited Food Rules Spark Hungarian NGO Opposition
- 4 Sep 2026 7:33 AM
Several Hungarian environmental and farming NGOs have urged the government to follow Slovakia's lead and launch legal action at the EU Court of Justice to annul the bloc's new regulation deregulating most gene-edited crops. They also called for cooperation with Slovakia and other member states opposing the rules.
In a statement on Thursday, the NGOs - Greenpeace Hungary, the Hungarian Organic Farming Association, and the Hungarian Nature Conservation Society -- noted that the European Parliament and Council recently approved a regulation that exempts most plants produced using new gene-editing techniques (NGTs) from key EU GMO safeguards.
Analysts estimate that 94 percent of plants covered by the regulation could fall into this category.
Under the new rules, these plants will no longer require the case-by-case environmental and health risk assessments currently mandated for GMOs, and foods derived from them will not need to be labelled as NGT or GMO for consumers, the statement said.
"Consumers will have no way of knowing whether their food contains new GMOs -- despite the regulation itself classifying NGT plants as genetically modified organisms," they added.
The NGOs said Slovakia's decision to challenge the regulation enjoyed strong public support. In Hungary, they added, the government had no unified stance on NGT deregulation: Laszlo Gajdos, minister for the living environment, opposed deregulation and signalled readiness to prepare an EU Court case if the government decides to act, while the agriculture ministry, they insisted, held a different position.
The organisations urged Hungary to take urgent legal steps, in line with its Fundamental Law.
Source: MTI – Hungary’s national news agency since 1881.
Photo: Pixabay
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