Category: EU Seed Legislation

A major revision is planned for EU seed laws.  This past weekend I was in Vienna with 25 or so other Non-Governmental Organizations, from nearly as many countries.   There were representatives from:

Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey as well as several internationally based organizations.

We spent most of the weekend discussing the current legislative proposals, as well as analysis, opinions and strategies.  Probably most importantly, we spent a lot of time networking and getting to know each other.  It was a very productive weekend.

It’s hard to be specific right now.  The legislation was formally in pre-draft form, a so-called ‘non-paper‘.  Many important parts of it are ‘delegated acts’, basically to be determined later by some unknown committee.  The legislation itself is very complex.  In addition to all of this, I think it’s fair to say the positions of several NGOs were developing, and so no overall positions or statements were made.  Today, the day after we all got home, a new draft of the legislation was released by Brussels, and at least I haven’t had a chance to look carefully at it.

It will be impossible to cover all the details on this blog, but I’ll try to keep everyone up to date as much as possible.

This is a really important piece of legislation!  It has implications for agriculture around the world.  I think most people in most places around the world have a stake in how it comes out, and should be paying close attention.

If there are people or NGOs reading this, who are interested in becoming more involved in the details, please send me an email and I’ll get you the information you need and put you in contact with the relevant people.