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Paper short abstract

A discursive analysis of EU gene-editing policy explaining how NGTs became acceptable where GMOs did not, through science-based, apolitical framings of precision and sustainability that support regulatory change while marginalising socioeconomic concerns.

Paper long abstract

The adoption of EU legislation on plants produced by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs) marks a historic shift away from the restrictive GMO regulatory framework that has governed gene-edited crops for the past three decades. This article critically examines how this regulatory transformation became politically possible from a discursive perspective. It analyses the EU debate and legislative process on gene-edited plants to explain why ‘NGTs’ have gained acceptance where ‘GMOs’ previously failed. Drawing on the Political Discourse Theory (PDT) the article examines the logics through which NGTs are framed as precise, science-based, and equivalent to conventionally bred crops. Empirically, the study is based on a document study and 15 semi-structured interviews with EU politicians, civil servants, lobbyists, and NGO representatives in Brussels. Preliminary analysis suggests how promises of a governable, sustainable future through values of control, innovation, efficiency, and profitability underpin an ostensibly “a-political” discourse that facilitates regulatory change by foregrounding scientific equivalence and technical precision. At the same time, the article highlights the political limits of this framing, showing how it marginalises concerns related to patents, corporate concentration, and resistance to the agro-industrial model in European agriculture. By unpacking the black box of science-based policymaking, the article demonstrates how scientific knowledge is actively negotiated and mobilised in EU biotechnology governance.