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At the November G20 summit, the G20 countries debated at the online summit on 21-22 / 11/2020 mainly on the current situation in the world regarding COVID-19, agreeing on the need to focus on food safety. At the same time, they expressed the need to ensure that the current health crisis does not become a food crisis. Furthermore, the representatives of the countries discussed the essence of proper nutrition, food sustainability and the agri-food chain, sufficient financing of agriculture, and ensuring sufficient food for the growing world population. In the Leaders’ Declaration, the G20 countries committed themselves to addressing all these points. They focused mainly on the pandemic crisis and related food safety.
The G20 statement is available here.

On 20/11/2020, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published an updated study on avian influenza virus, carried out jointly with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza. EFSA warns of a rapidly spreading disease in northern Europe, affecting previously untouched countries. So far, the infection occurs in BE, DK, DE, IE, NL, SE, and UK. The highly pathogenic strain H5N8 was detected in 302 birds, of which almost ¾ were confirmed in the northern part of Germany. On 11/11/2020, a national bird flu prevention zone was declared for England, Wales, and Scotland. Avian influenza has so far affected mostly wild birds, 18 outbreaks have been identified in poultry and 3 cases in captive birds. On 22/11/2020, NL announced the finding of a highly pathogenic strain of H5N8 in a poultry farm near Utrecht. 100,000 poultry were killed, so in total more than 500,000 poultry have already been killed in NL.
More information is available here, here and here.

In May 2020, European Commissioner for Food Safety Stella Kyriakides sent a letter to EU agriculture ministers reaffirming the EC's determination to take legal action against countries that systematically violate EU legislation on the welfare of laying hens, livestock and the use of pesticides. FR is the only country that is explicitly warned about breaching the welfare of laying hens, as it continues to violate the 1999 EU directive. A Europe-wide ban on conventional cages came into force in 2012. The new minimum standard for hens is so-called enriched cages, but about half of the French cages do not meet this specification. The FR must also stop docking pig tails and tighten conditions for the export of live animals on board ships.
More information is available here.

On 25/11/2020, the European Commission issued an Action Plan on Intellectual Property to promote the resilience and recovery of the Union's economy. According to the Commission, the action plan proposes to modernize a number of existing intellectual property protection instruments and adapt them to the digital age, including the improvement of supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) for patented and plant protection products and the modernization of EU design protection. It seeks to strengthen the protection of agricultural geographical indications, while considering the feasibility of a system for the protection of geographical indications for non-agricultural products at EU level. The Action Plan calls on Member States to swiftly introduce a unitary patent system to create a single point of contact for patent protection and enforcement across the EU. According to the Commission, the action plan aims to protect intangible assets, but also seeks to improve access to key intangible assets, and therefore proposes measures to facilitate the sharing of key intellectual property in times of crisis while ensuring return on investment. The Commission will also work to improve the copyright infrastructure and take steps to better mobilize intellectual property data. It will also propose ways to increase transparency and predictability in the licensing of patents necessary to comply with technical standards (SEPs), as these patents are a key element in the digital transformation of European industry.
More information is available here.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued an opinion on 24/11/2020 that gene modification techniques do not pose a higher risk compared to conventional breeding or GMO techniques. The opinion concerned a technique called site-directed nuclease-1 (SDN-1), site-directed nuclease-2 (SDN-2) and oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis (ODM). Unlike site-directed nucleases-3 (SDN-3), evaluated by EFSA in 2012, they modify a specific region of the genome without introducing new DNA. According to the EFSA Panel, existing guidelines for GM plant risk assessment can be used for three new techniques and less data will be needed for risk assessment due to the absence of new DNA. The EFSA opinion will be used in the EC report, which should be published in April 2021, according to the 2018 ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU that genome modifications should be regulated under GMO legislation.
More information is available here and here.