The European Court of Justice [official website] ruled [judgement] Wednesday that genome editing, a process when DNA in a living thing is altered, is a form of genetic engineering.

A French agricultural union and eight environmental groups challenged a French policy that did not regard genome editing as a form of genetic engineering and sought to compel the French prime minister to ban “herbicide-tolerant plant varieties” obtained by genome editing.

After considering a number of questions brought by the French Counsel of State, the court reasoned that:

[T]he mutations brought about by techniques/methods of mutagenesis such as those at issue in the main proceedings, the implementation of which is intended to produce herbicide-resistant varieties of plant species, constitute alterations made to the genetic material of an organism…  It follows that organisms obtained by means of techniques/methods of mutagenesis must be considered to be GMOs.

The court also ruled that organisms that are obtained by genome editing with widespread use and longstanding safety records are exempt from certain EU regulations on GMOs.