The European Parliament’s amendments to the Food and Feed Safety Omnibus show significant support for faster access to innovation, reduced duplication and a regulatory system that works more consistently across the Single Market. The challenge now is to turn that ambition into practical improvements for farmers, while maintaining science-based decision-making and the conditions needed for continued investment in innovation.
The European Parliament has taken an important step in its work on the Food and Feed Safety Omnibus, tabling a wide range of amendments aimed at improving the functioning of the EU regulatory framework. Across political groups, the proposals reflect growing recognition that farmers need faster access to innovation, less administrative burden and a regulatory system that works more consistently across the Single Market.
Yet the amendments do not all point in the same direction. Some would reduce duplication and improve access to crop protection solutions. Others risk creating new uncertainty or replacing one layer of complexity with another. As the European Parliament develops its compromise position, the key question is whether the final text will deliver meaningful simplification in practice.
Growing support for innovation
One of the clearest signals from Parliament is support for accelerating access to innovation. Several amendments would extend faster authorisation pathways beyond biocontrol products to a wider range of new crop protection solutions, provided they meet the relevant safety requirements. Other proposals call for dedicated regulatory capacity to assess innovation more quickly.
CropLife Europe welcomes this direction. Farmers need a diverse toolbox to respond to climate pressures, emerging pests and resistance challenges. Biological and conventional technologies are complementary. Where a regulatory improvement simply removes unnecessary procedural delays, it should support innovation across the full toolbox.
Making the Single Market work better
The European Parliament has also proposed changes to improve mutual recognition. Today, products already assessed in one Member State can face additional procedures elsewhere, delaying access to solutions that have already undergone scientific evaluation.
A more practical system of mutual recognition could reduce duplicate applications and assessments, while allowing national authorities to focus on genuinely local considerations. For farmers, this is one of the clearest ways in which simplification could make a tangible difference.
There is also support for moving away from automatic, calendar-driven full reassessments. CropLife Europe supports a more targeted approach: when relevant new scientific evidence raises a concern, the question and the data requested should focus on that concern. Authorities must be able to broaden an assessment where the evidence justifies it, but a targeted review should not become a full renewal by another name.
Simplification must not come at the expense of science
The debate around Maximum Residue Levels remains more contested. Some amendments would preserve consumer risk assessment and require the wider impact of a decision to be considered before an MRL is lowered. Others would allow action based on the hazard properties of a substance, rather than demonstrated consumer risk.
CropLife Europe believes MRL decisions must remain grounded in consumer risk assessment. This is how the system currently works and protects consumer safety.
Moving away from risk-based decision-making could result in MRLs being lowered without evidence of a consumer safety concern, with potentially significant consequences for European farmers and trade partners. Simplification should strengthen the consistency and scientific basis of the system, rather than introduce a fundamentally different decision-making principle.
Protecting investment while improving efficiency
Several amendments recognize the importance of in regulatory data protection in sustaining investment in the studies required to demonstrate safety and efficacy of crop protection solutions. Others, however, risk reducing the effective protection available to innovators.
Simplification should make data protection clearer and easier to administer across the EU, without underminining the incentive to invest in bringing new solutions to European farmers.
Responding to farmers’ needs
Several amendments also recognise the practical consequences of losing crop protection solutions. They propose clearer consideration of whether viable alternatives exist, alongside agronomic factors such as efficacy, resistance management and economic impact. Other proposals seek more predictable transition periods where no immediate and serious safety concern requires a faster withdrawal.
These issues matter because regulatory decisions must work under real farming conditions. The challenge is particularly acute in a context where more than 90 substances has been lost from the European toolbox in the last 7,5 years.
A solution is not a viable alternative simply because it exists in theory. It must be effective, available and workable for the crop, pest and conditions concerned.
The real test comes next
The amendments show considerable support for faster access to innovation, a stronger Single Market, reduced duplication and a more focused regulatory system. But important choices remain, particularly around science-based MRL decisions, a workable framework for biocontrol and effective protection for regulatory data.
The success of the Food and Feed Safety Omnibus will be measured by whether farmers gain more timely and consistent access to solutions, whether authorities can use their resources more effectively and whether Europe remains a place where companies invest in the next generation of crop protection innovation.
That is the opportunity before Parliament: to turn the ambition of simplification into real change for Europe’s farmers while maintaining the high standards of protection that society expects.|
Should you like to see our detailed view – please click here to read our position paper.