Dec 19, 2003

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Responsibilities within genetic engineering law

Chancellor’s majority for nature conservation agency

(19 Dec.) With their majority in the Bundestag, the SPD and Greens have dismissed the Bundesrat’s objection to the law for adapting responsibilities in the area of genetic engineering law. Now the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) can take over the genetic engineering law responsibilities previously conferred on the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA).

This means that the government coalition has definitely come out on top against the majority of the federal states and the opposition in the Bundestag. A mediation process between the Bundesrat and Bundestag had previously failed.

The transfer of the responsibilities of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) to the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) was barely disputed. However, the federal states had rejected the transfer of responsibilities previously exercised by the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) – concerning the approval of deliberate releases and the marketing of genetically modified organisms – to the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) as “not technically justified”. They claimed that genetic engineering is a cross-sectional task within environmental protection, in which all the impacts of GMOs on the entire environment and on human health have to be taken into account. This, they claim, goes far beyond the duties of the nature conservation agency.