Nov 14, 2003

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Responsibilities within genetic engineering law

Mediation fails

(14 Nov.) The Bundestag/Bundesrat mediation committee failed yesterday in Berlin to reach a compromise on adapting responsibilities within genetic engineering law.

Following this third and final meeting, the mediation process is deemed to have failed. The draft legislation will now be back on the Bundesrat agenda on 28 November in its original form. It is to be expected that the Bundesrat will object to the bill. This objection can be outvoted by the Bundestag with a coalition majority.

It is likely then that the German government will succeed in pushing through its planned transfer of responsibility for the approval of deliberate releases and the marketing of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) to the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN). The Bundesrat had rejected this at the end of September, saying it was not technically justified and had called in the mediation committee.

At the same time, the law is to transfer the genetic engineering law responsibilities previously conferred on the Robert Koch Institute to the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL). This move is not being disputed between the federal government and the Länder, because it is simply carrying through at authority level the switch that took place at the end of last year, when Renate Künast’s Ministry of Consumer Protection, whose portfolio includes the BVL, took over as the coordinating agency in the field of genetic engineering from the Federal Ministry of Health, which is responsible for the Robert Koch Institute. The dispute over responsibilities for inspections and authorisations under genetic engineering law would therefore appear to be nearing an end.

What remains open, however, is the future regulation of liability and coexistence if genetically modified plants were to be cultivated. Despite months of preliminary discussions, there is still no agreed government draft of the sweeping review of the Genetic Engineering Act planned by Consumer Protection Minister Künast.