Outcome of the public consultation on the draft Scientific Opinion on the evaluation of existing guidelines for their adequacy for the microbial characterisation and environmental risk assessment of micro‐organisms obtained through synthetic biology

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) carried out a public consultation to receive input from interested parties on the draft scientific opinion on the evaluation of existing guidelines for their adequacy for the microbial characterisation and environmental risk assessment of micro‐organisms obtained through synthetic biology. This draft scientific opinion was prepared by the EFSA Scientific Committee, supported by a Working Group on Synthetic Biology of Genetically Modified Micro‐organisms and their Environmental Risk Assessment. The draft opinion was endorsed by the EFSA Scientific Committee for public consultation on 19 February 2020. The written public consultation was open from 31 March 2020 until 4 June 2020. EFSA received comments from 16 different interested parties. EFSA and its Scientific Committee wish to thank all stakeholders for their contributions to this work. The present report contains the comments received and details how they have been considered for finalisation of the opinion. The final opinion was adopted at the Scientific Committee Plenary meeting on 16 September 2020 and will be published in the EFSA Journal.© European Food Safety Authority, 2020

This publication is linked to the following EFSA Journal article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/j.efsa.2020.6263/full