Sep 24, 2004

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Mediation Committee

More amendments to Genetic Engineering Act after all?

(23 September) The Mediation Committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat has postponed its discussion of the Genetic Engineering Act. As a result, the timetable for its final approval will slip. The Bundesrat and Bundestag will not be able to vote on the law this coming Friday, as originally planned, and further amendments to the government’s draft legislation may be a possibility after all.

The Mediation Committee was expected to refer the government’s Genetic Engineering Act to the Bundestag and Bundesrat unchanged for final approval. This was expected to be a mere formality, since the views of the red-green coalition government and the majority of federal states in the Bundesrat were so far apart that any attempt at reaching a compromise was seen as a futile exercise.

The final vote by the Bundestag and Bundesrat on the new legislation was due to take place on Friday. With a ‘Chancellor’s Majority’ – one more vote than the majority of seats – the majority of federal states would have been outvoted by the coalition government.

Before the summer break the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Renate Künast, had redrafted the original bill in such a way that it no longer required the Bundesrat’s approval. At the same time she had also tightened the provisions for the cultivation of GM crops, in particular regarding coexistence and liability.

Now that the Mediation Committee has not reached a decision, the outcome of the legislative process is once again uncertain. Two of the SPD-governed federal states, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Rhineland-Palatinate, are opposed to the government’s bill. Together with the majority of CDU-governed federal states, who have been advocating a thorough review for some time, they were threatening to form a two-thirds majority against the bill in the Bundesrat.

The government coalition will not be able to press through its proposals against such massive opposition in the Bundesrat. Alexander Müller, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture (BMVEL), sees the postponement by the Mediation Committee as an ‘avoidable but tolerable delay’. Some federal states had presented a number of detailed questions. ‘We will use this delay to address these questions again,’ said Müller.

Nevertheless, the red-green government will not be able to avoid further negotiations with the federal states, which is exactly what Künast was hoping to prevent.

Scientific community up in arms

The government’s proposed Genetic Engineering Act had recently come under attack. In a joint letter to the Mediation Committee, seven German scientific organisations had expressed their dissatisfaction with the draft legislation: the proposed requirements for the cultivation of GM crops would in practice spell ‘the end of German research and development in the field of green genetic engineering’. The scientists blame the liability regulations in particular, which would represent ‘an incalculable risk for all researchers’.

The German Minister for Consumer Affairs, Renate Künast, disagreed strongly with this scenario. In an interview with the weekly newspaper Die ZEIT she warned the scientists to consider whether perhaps ‘their own statements were helping to undermine Germany’s position as a centre of research and development’.

EU-conformity – Künast disagrees with European Commission

Künast has also defended her draft legislation against criticism from Brussels. At the end of July, the European Commission had issued an opinion stating that a number of provisions in the draft document were in breach of EU legislation. However, according to Künast, the provisions concerning coexistence and liability in particular ‘cannot possibly be in breach of EU legislation, since the European Commission decided – against Germany’s pleas – not to provide an EU-wide regulation on this matter’. Her ministry had written a reply to the European Commission, answering all its queries in detail and demonstrating that the provisions in the German draft legislation were in line with EU requirements. The liability regulations are covered by the applicable section on neighbourhood law within the German Civil Code (BGB). Equally, German civil law contains equivalent provisions to the much-criticised joint and several liability without fault.

To what extent this will convince the European Commission remains doubtful – particularly in view of the fact that the Commission’s comments were based on a previous version of the draft legislation. The items criticised by the Commission have since been tightened still further. The government in Berlin can probably expect another letter from Brussels shortly.