[Click to translate in French / cliquez pour accéder à la page en français]
As from 8:55am on 28 April, you will able to connect to our dedicated video platform and watch the videostream of the CPVO seminar using one of these links:
- Live videostream in ORIGINAL LANGUAGE (you will hear the seminar without interpretation)
In addition, you can also follow the seminar live on the CPVO YouTube channel, where the recordings should become available only a few hours after the end of the seminar.
Enjoy and remember that you can ask questions to the speakers at https://evals.fr/cpvo22 or scan this QR code:
Finally, the study "Impact of the Community Plant Variety Rights system on the EU economy and the environment", jointly published by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the CPVO, can be downloaded:
- Download full study in English
- Download executive summary in English
- Download executive summary in French
--------------------------
On 28 April 2022, the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) will host a policy seminar dedicated to the role and impact of plant variety protection in the European Union. The seminar will also coincide with the public release and presentation of the new European study called "Impact of the Community Plant Variety Rights system on the EU economy and the environment" and jointly published by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the CPVO.
The event is labeled as an official event of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union. It will be held in English and French, and will take place at the "Centre des Congrès Jean Monnier" located 33 Boulevard Carnot in Angers, France. The event will also be webstreamed live and recorded. Registration is necessary. The link will be made available on this page.
The event will gather representatives from the European Institutions, French authorities, Breeding industry, SMEs, academics and a broad range of other stakeholders.
Agenda
8:30 - 9:00 Registration & Coffee
9:00 – 9:10 Welcome & introduction to the seminar
- Marcel Bruins, moderator - European Seed magazine
9:10 – 9:35 Keynote speech: Plant Variety Protection in the European Union: a success story and the future challenges.
- Sandra Gallina, European Commission, Director-General for Health & Food Safety (DG SANTE)
9:35 – 10:00 Keynote speech: Key challenges & opportunities of Plant Variety Protection in France.
- Bruno Ferreira, France's Ministry of Agriculture & Food, Director-General for Food
10:00 - 10:30 Presentation of the study: Impact of the Community Plant Variety Rights system on the EU economy and the environment
- Christian Archambeau, European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), Executive Director (video message)
- Nathan Wajsman, European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), Chief Economist
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 11:50 Panel discussion I: The impact of plant variety protection: innovation in plant breeding as a leverage for growth
- Bert-Jan Ruissen, Member of the European Parliament
- Dorothée André, European Commission, DG SANTE, Head of Unit Plant Health
- Sébastien Paque, French Breeders Union (UFS), Head of Unit Plant Breeding
- Per Henriksson, Swedish Seed Trade Association (SVUF), Secretary-General
- Marien Valstar, Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands, Senior Policy Officer Seeds and Propagating Materials
11:55 – 12:45 Panel discussion II: The impact of plant variety protection: innovation in plant breeding as a tool to become more sustainable
- Juozas Olekas, Member of the European Parliament
- Michele Morgante, Scientific Director of the Institute of Applied Genomics (IGA) in Udine and professor of Genetics at the University of Udine
- Diana Lenzi, European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA), President
- Alain Tridon, French Variety and Seed Study and Control Group (GEVES), Director-General
- Nikita Sajeev, Genesprout Initiative, PhD researcher in the field of plant biotechnology at Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands
12:45 – 13:00 Conclusions of the debates
- Francesco Mattina, Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO), President
13:00 - 13:50 Buffet lunch
Profile of speakers
Sandra GALLINA - European Commission Directorate General for Health and Food Safety
Ms. Sandra Gallina is Director-General at the European Commission – Directorate General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE).
Sandra Gallina joined the European Commission in 1988. Before joining DG SANTE, between 2018 and 2020 she was Deputy Director General for TRADE. Between 2014 and 2018 she was Director for DG TRADE Directorate D “Sustainable Development; Economic Partnership Agreements - African, Caribbean and Pacific; Agri-food and Fisheries”.
Sandra Gallina was also the EU chief negotiator for the EU-MERCOSUR Free Trade Agreement. Between 2001 and 2009 she was the EU Lead Negotiator for Non-Agricultural Market Access in the WTO Doha Round and in that capacity, she defined and presented EU policy for the Doha Development Agenda on non-agricultural market access negotiations.
Before joining DG TRADE, she worked in the Directorate General for Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD) at the end of the 1990s.
Bruno FERREIRA - Ministry of Agriculture and Food
Inspector General of Veterinary Public Health, Bruno Ferreira is General Director of Food (DGAL) since May 2019.
Bruno Ferreira has spent most of his career at the Ministry in charge of agriculture.
He was previously deputy director of the minister's office, in charge of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), diplomatic relations since July 2017 and agro-ecology since October 2018. During the 2010 decade, he held various advisory positions in the minister's office (2012-2015) and at DGAL: head of the department of sanitary actions in primary production; director of the Avian Influenza crisis unit; deputy director of food safety.
From 2006 to 2009, he was deputy head of the agriculture, food and fisheries sector at the General Secretariat for European Affairs (SGAE) in charge of veterinary and phytosanitary issues.
From 2004 to 2006, he was head of the regional plant protection service at the Regional and Interdepartmental Directorate of Ile-de-France.
Bruno Ferreira began his career in agricultural education and held various positions in the Regional Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry of Rhône-Alpes.
Christian ARCHAMBEAU - EUIPO
Christian Archambeau, a Belgian national, was appointed as Executive Director of the European Union Intellectual Property Office by the Council of the European Union in 2018. A graduate in civil engineering from Université libre de Bruxelles, he has been part of the Office’s top management team since taking over as Deputy Executive Director on 1 December 2010. Under successive Strategic Plans since that date, Mr Archambeau had direct oversight of Finance, Infrastructure, the Academy, and the Office’s quality, performance and risk initiatives. His responsibilities included the Office’s major building and infrastructure programmes, ISO 9001 certification for all operations and the introduction of an integrated enterprise-wide risk management approach.
In the Finance area, he oversaw the introduction of Activity Based Budgeting and Management and the process simplifications that helped contribute to substantial annual cost efficiency gains. This enabled the Office to cope with a major growth in workload from EU trade mark and design registrations while also taking on increased responsibilities in international cooperation in IP and developing the European Union Observatory on Infringements of IP Rights. Prior to joining the EUIPO, he held a number of senior positions in the European Patent Office in Infrastructure, Administration and Human Resources. He previously worked in construction in the Middle East before moving to the European Space Agency in facility management.
Nathan WAJSMAN - EUIPO
Born in Wrocław, Poland and a dual Polish/Danish national, Nathan Wajsman was educated at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and later undertook graduate studies in the USA, earning a PhD in Economics from the University of Florida and an MBA from Temple University in Philadelphia.
Dr. Wajsman was named Chief Economist of the EUIPO in May 2011. He has been with the agency since 2007, previously working in Finance and Quality Management. His team carries out economic research focusing on the role of IP in the European economy, as well as studies of infringement of IP rights and its economic consequences.
Prior to joining the Office, he spent 20 years working in the private sector. A stint as a forecasting analyst at an electric utility in Florida was followed by a career in telecommunications and finance industries in the USA and several European countries, including positions with AT&T in the USA and Belgium, Swiss Reinsurance Company in Zurich, and Claranet Benelux, a managed hosting and internet service provider in the Netherlands.
Bert-Jan RUISSEN - Member of the European Parliament
Bert-Jan Ruissen is a Dutch politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the Netherlands. He is a member of the Reformed Political Party (SGP), part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). In the European Parliament, he is a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Previously, Bert-Jan Ruissen worked as advisor for EU Agriculture Policy for the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality for 19 years. He has represented The Netherlands in the EU Council in working groups and committees of DG AGRI.
Bert-Jan Ruissen studied plant science at Wageningen University and Research in The Netherlands.
Dorothée ANDRÉ - European Commission - Directorate General for Health and Food Safety
Dorothée André is the Head of Unit Plant Health – DG SANTE – European Commission (since 2016).
Previous position:
Head of Unit Biotechnology – DG SANTE – European Commission (since 2009)
Educational Background:
Dr Agronomy Engineer – University of Gembloux and Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Sébastien PAQUE - French Seed Union (UFS)
Sébastien Paque is head of the plant breeding unit at the French Breeders Union (UFS) since November 2021 where he deals with intellectual property issues.
Previously, he spent 4 years at the Ministry of Agriculture in the office of seeds and alternative solutions where he was able to familiarize himself with the seed legislation and the system of registration of varieties in the common catalog.
From 2010 to 2018, he did research in plant biology, at Gif sur Yvette during his PhD and at Wageningen University in the Netherlands to understand the molecular mechanisms that allow plant cells to grow and divide.
Per HENRIKSSON - Swedish Seed Trade Association (SVUF)
Per Henriksson has a degree from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, he manages plant breeding programs in Sweden and in the UK, mainly cereal species and potato.
Part of team working with regulatory affairs concerning new breeding techniques in the Nordic countries as well as the European Union.
Current position: Secretary General at the Swedish Seed Trade
Marien VALSTAR - Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, Netherlands
Marien Valstar (1964) is Senior policy officer Seeds and Propagating Materials in the Directorate-General for Agro and Nature in the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands. His work focuses on national, European and global policies related to the Plant Variety protection, and registration and certification of plant varieties.
Current Responsibilities in the Netherlands: Seed Law, Plant Breeders Law, Plant Variety Board /Variety testing
Representative of the Netherlands in Standing Committees on Seeds of the European Commission and in Council Working parties.
President of the Administrative Council of the European Community Plant Variety Office. This office grants plant breeders rights pan-EU.
President of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). UPOV is an intergovernmental organization. It’s mission is to provide and promote an effective system of plant variety protection, with the aim of encouraging the development of new varieties of plants, for the benefit of society.
Marien is a graduate of the Wageningen University and Research (1988), where he studied Horticulture.
Juozas OLEKAS - Member of the European Parliament
Juozas Olekas is a Lithuanian surgeon and politician, a former Minister of National Defence, from 2006 to 2008. In 1990 and from 2003 to 2004 he also served as the Health Minister. In 2019 he was elected to the European Parliament where he is affiliated to S&D group and he is a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Juozas Olekas studied at Kaunas Institute of Medicine from 1974 to 1976, and at Vilnius University from 1976 to 1980. Between 1994 and 1997 he was a chief physician at the Vilnius University hospital.
Michele MORGANTE - Institute of Applied Genomics (IGA) and the University of Udine
Michele Morgante is currently the Scientific Director of Istituto di Genomica Applicata in Udine and is professor of Genetics at the University of Udine. He was educated as a geneticist in Padova and Udine and then worked for 5 years at DuPont Crop Genomics as Senior scientist. His research group has been instrumental in establishing a number of genetic technology platforms that are now being widely deployed in plant genomic research (e.g. microsatellites, fluorescent BAC fingerprinting). His research programme is currently focusing on genome analysis in plants, including genome sequencing and resequencing and genome evolution studies, sequence diversity analysis and epigenomics. He has contributed to the sequencing of the grapevine, peach, citrus, olie and coffee genome among the others. He is particularly interested in novel approaches to dissecting complex traits and in developing the genomics and informatics technologies needed for this.
He is a member of Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (National Academy of Sciences) and Academia Europaea and has received the 2005 Medal for Physical and Natural Sciences of the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL. In 2011 he has been awarded by the European Research Council an Advanced Grant for the analysis of plant pan genomes.
Diana LENZI - European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA)
Diana is a young farmer from Tuscany where since 2008 she manages her family’s winery. She cultivates and process grapes to make Chianti Classico wines, olives for EVO and ancient grains for flour and pasta.
Diana has been involved and active in Confagricoltura (ANGA) since 2012, when she founded the section for Siena of which she was President for 6 years. Since then she has been President at the regional level and Vice-President at the national level from 2015 to 2019. Following that she became ANGA delegate for CEJA, targeting her experience at EU level. She is since 28 June 2021 CEJA’s President.
Alain TRIDON - GEVES
Director General of GEVES since July 1, 2019.
An agricultural engineer by training, Alain Tridon, was previously deputy director of health, quality and plant protection and then head of the department of sanitary actions in primary production - a department of the General Directorate of Food at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
Previously, he had worked in several regional and departmental services of the State, including ten years as a departmental director of equipment and agriculture, services in charge of the implementation of the common agricultural policy, land use planning policies and the environment.
His background gives him a good knowledge of the issues and actors of the agri-food sector - in particular in the field of varieties, seeds and plants - at local, national, European and international levels, and of the policies and regulatory frameworks in which they operate.
Nikita SAJEEV - GeneSprout Initiative
Nikita Sajeev is a PhD researcher in the field of plant biotechnology at Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands.
Through her research, she wants to make plants more resilient to environmental stresses and climate change. She feels a strong responsibility to bridge the knowledge and communication gap between researchers, the public and policy makers. Soon after the ECJ ruling of 2018, she co-founded the GeneSprout Initiative - an early career scientist platform for open dialogue on New Genomic Techniques (NGTs). GeneSprout has been very active in hosting and participating in open dialogue events for public and policy makers in Europe. They also develop freely accessible and understandable content about NGTs to empower the public with reliable information so that they can make an informed choice.
Francesco MATTINA - Community Plant Variety Office
Francesco Mattina, an Italian national, was appointed as President of the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) by the Council of the European Union in December 2021 and officially started his presidential duties on 1st February 2022. Educated as a lawyer with a degree in law from the University of Parma, Italy, he holds specialisations in European Union Law, from the European College of Parma, Italy, and in Intellectual Property Law, from the University of Alicante, Spain.
Francesco Mattina joined the CPVO in 2013 after a first experience in the EU public sector as a senior legal advisor in industrial property at the European Union Intellectual Property Agency (EUIPO). Since 2013, Francesco Mattina held various management positions at the CPVO. From 2013 to 2017, he was the Head of the Legal Unit. From 2017 until his current appointment, Francesco Mattina was Vice-President of the CPVO. In this role, he deputised for the President while keeping oversight of all legal matters of the Office.
Before joining the EU public sector, he managed contentious disputes in all major areas of intellectual property as an attorney-at-law admitted to practice before Italian national courts and the Court of Justice of the European Union. He served as partner in several national and international law firms based in Italy.
Marcel BRUINS - European Seed
Marcel BRUINS studied Plant Breeding at Wageningen University in The Netherlands, followed by a PhD award on Fusarium resistance in wheat. He worked for 10 years with a vegetable seed company as Manager Plant Variety Protection. He then served for 7 years as Secretary-General of the International Seed Federation (ISF), lead the Secretariat of the International Grain Trade Coalition (IGTC) through a phase of transition and continued working as their Scientific Advisor. Besides being the Editorial Director of the ‘European Seed’ magazine, he also operates as an independent consultant, helping out companies and non-profit organizations with their questions on seed, grain, trade facilitation, intellectual property and international outreach.