“In a long-awaited step, the European Parliament yesterday passed a law that allows the expedited approval of many gene-edited crops without the rigorous review required for traditional transgenic varieties…

Scientists and seed companies hope the law will lead to faster adoption of crops with improved disease resistance, heat tolerance, and nutrition…

Under the rules, as finalized this week, approval will be faster for crops whose gene edit seems modest enough that it could have been made through conventional breeding—a simple base change in an existing gene, for example, rather than the addition a nonplant gene. Stricter oversight will remain for transgenic engineering or more substantial gene editing.”

From Science.