The European Union's top court ruled today that food produced by a series of new biotechnology breeding techniques should be considered genetically modified organisms, thus falling under the EU's strict regulations of the products.
The ruling, which will see the foods face special safety checks and labelling restrictions, was seen as a major victory for environmentalists at the expense of the biotech industry.
Biotech companies have been working on a new generation of technologies to change genetic material in plants or animals, and it had long been debated whether they need to match the EU's rules limiting genetic modification, which are much stricter than in the United States.
In today's ruling, the European Court of Justice said that the organisms created by the new breeding techniques "come, in principle, within the scope of the GMO Directive and are subject to the obligations laid down by that directive."
German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze welcomed the ruling, calling it "good news for the environment and consumer protection. The verdict is also a clear commitment to the precautionary principle in Europe."