Keep GMO food regulated and labelled!

The European Union has regulations on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). However, over the years, there have been several attempts to change the legislation in place and deregulate GMO foods. Back in 2022, WeMove Europe gGmbH, together with a strong coalition of partners, created a campaign calling to keep GMO food regulated and labelled. The campaign “Keep GMO food regulated and labelled” alone collected over 180,000 signatures, and altogether the coalition collected more than 400,000 signatures, sending a strong message to the European Commission and EU governments that people all over Europe want to keep GMO foods regulated. In 2025, the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU tried to conclude a deal on GMO deregulation. The Polish government’s proposal was incompatible with core EU principles of health and environmental protection as well as farmers’ and consumers’ rights; hence, we mobilised our community to send emails to the Polish Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development to express their concern. The Polish Minister of Agriculture, Czesław Siekierski, answered our email, but the proposal went forward in an even worse version than the first one. We therefore decided to try to influence Belgium’s government (Belgium as a key country). We asked our members to write personal emails in French to the Vice Minister in the federal government and other key federal ministers involved in the decision. As a result, 1,139 emails were sent to national targets of the first action and the Polish ministry, and 2,084 emails were sent by members to Belgian targets.

Belgium, along with 8 more EU countries, did not indicate support during the meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) in Brussels. However, a qualified majority of EU Member States backed the deregulation of genetically modified (GM) plants produced using so-called new genomic techniques (NGTs), and it is now up to the European Parliament to reject this deal.