CHALLENGES OF THE EUROPEAN SEED INDUSTRY

producers Abstract: The European Union (EU) has been in recent years the biggest market for agricultural and horticultural seeds. Although, in the recently enlarged EU, the branch has been developing very well, still there are challenges that Europe should be ready to face. The seed production procedures need to be simplified to face the increasing pressure of the US seed exporting companies and organizations. There must be some liberation in transgenic cultivars registration and seed production. One should be more aware of the fast coming globalization of the sector and consequences of intellectual property rights. At the same time some branch activities have been moved outside Europe. Other big challenges for the branch are privatization of the sector, increasing competition of consumption seeds and limiting chemicals for seed dressing. The European Union (EU) has been in recent years the biggest market for agricultural and horticultural seeds. According to the available data from the International Seed Federation (ISF) and French organization called Group Interprofessional for Seeds and Plants (GNIS), in 2004, it took 22 % of the world’s value of all seed trade transactions. At the same time, it has been also the area of big overproduction in both agriculture and horticulture. The EU has always had a large potential for plant breeding and high quality seed production. During the past 50 years, the world seed industry (including the one in Europe) and its regulations has changed drastically. Out of the EU countries, there are three countries, which have had in recent years the biggest influence of the European seed production and trade. These were in production measured by the area of seed plantations: France, Germany an