EU member states and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement to overhaul rules for producing and selling plant reproductive material — such as seeds and other material used to grow crops — across the bloc.
The deal would replace several sector-by-sector directives with a single EU-wide regulation, creating one set of rules for the production and marketing of plant reproductive material, the Council of the EU announced on Monday night.
The new framework is intended to support greater agrobiodiversity and conservation and locally adapted varieties, while giving breeders, professional operators and non-professional operators more flexibility depending on how the material is used.
It would also include measures designed to ensure plant reproductive material sold on the EU market is of “high and reliable quality” and suited to environmental and climate conditions in Europe.
Maria Panayiotou, Cyprus’s Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, said the agreement would deliver rules supporting innovation and biodiversity, and provide farmers with “high-quality material” for agricultural production.
What changes are included
The Council said the agreed text would allow the use of digital tools and biomolecular techniques — methods that examine biological material at the molecular level — alongside production approaches not envisaged when parts of the existing framework were written.
It noted the rules would introduce harmonised procedures and digital documentation intended to reduce administrative workload for national authorities and operators.
Under the agreement, testing of new varieties for their “value for sustainable cultivation and use” would remain mandatory for agricultural plants (except turf grasses), as well as potato and vine.
On enforcement, the Council said variety registration would be excluded from the scope of the EU’s regulation on official controls, alongside other exemptions intended to avoid unnecessary administrative requirements.
The provisional agreement must still be endorsed by the Council and the European Parliament before it can be formally adopted, and it would apply four years after entering into force.
