Dear Readers,

Since the EU elections things have gone quiet around a (de-)regulation of New GMOs or New Genomic Techniques (NGTs), respectively. It will not stay that way: the most important designated commissioners for the NGT file will have their hearings this week. Candidates are Hungary’s Olivér Varhelyi (health and animal welfare) and Luxembourg's Christophe Hansen (agriculture and food). The European Parliament has already nominated its rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs for the trilogue, negotiations between all three involved institutions. However, it is not foreseeable that the trilogue will start under the current Hungarian Council Presidency. Although two more meetings of the Council working group on NGTs are planned, there are no signs of a general approach, i.e. of the member states agreeing on a common position, enabling the trilogue to start.

For ENGA, the International Non-GMO Summit in October 2024, organised together with the leading European Non-GMO associations ARGE Gentechnik-frei, Donau Soja, ProTerra Foundation and VLOG (Association Food without Genetic Engineering), was certainly one of the highlights of the year. A month later, we are still delighted with the great success and the positive comments we have received – reason enough to draw your attention to some key messages, presented by speakers as diverse as the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, IFOAM Organics Europe, FoodChain ID and, of course, ENGA. 

We also have the pleasure of introducing Wolfgang Ahammer, new ENGA board member since our general assembly in October and General Manager Sales, Marketing, IT, Logistics of a medium-sized company based in Austria. 

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Kind regards,

Heike Moldenhauer

Secretary General