"The Directorate of Animal Health and Welfare of the European Commission has accepted Interbull/ICAR recommendation to consider genomic evaluations validated by the GEBV test as valid procedures within EU states. The validation results are considered to be sufficient evidence to conform to the EU legislation (Decision 2006/427/EC) during the current phase of implementing international genomic comparisons by Interbull (link to the EC official communication). During the Interbull Technical Workshop to be held in Guelph, Canada, from February 27-28, the GEBV validation will be once more discussed and the Interbull Steering Committee will provide clear policies on further developments of the GEBV validation procedures. As soon as proper methods for international genomic comparisons of national GEBVs are in place (GMACE or Simplified GMACE), GEBV validation will be mandatory prior to acceptance of national data, and then no specific results of the validation will be published, resembling the current procedure for validation of conventional EBVs prior to participation in the MACE runs."