Apr 29, 2005

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Bundesrat

Genetic Engineering Act sent back to the mediation committee

In its session on 29 April, the Bundesrat rejected the second genetic engineering amendment bill. The federal states, the majority of which are run by the CDU/CSU, instead called on the mediation committee to negotiate a compromise. Agreement will be particularly difficult on coexistence issues and liability in connection with the cultivation of genetically modified crops.

Unlike the first amending law, the second contains legal requirements that can be passed only with the approval of the Bundesrat (upper house). At the heart of this package of amendments are procedural issues concerning the operation of genetic engineering facilities.

While opinions on these procedural issues for closed facilities are not that divided, the provisions of the Genetic Engineering Act regarding the cultivation of genetically modified crops continue to be hotly debated.

With today’s decision the federal states are calling into question again passages from the first amending law that are already in force.

The red-green ruling coalition divided the original amending law into two parts in the summer of 2004. This meant that the first part with the particularly contentious regulations on liability and coexistence could be passed without the Bundesrat’s approval and has been in force since February.

The Bundesrat is now demanding that in the second amendment process, these points be re-examined as well and the whole Act fundamentally revised.

“We must not ruin our chances for the future”, explains Bavaria’s Environment Minister Werner Schnappauf. “It must not be based on ideological views “.

Consumer Protection Minister, Renate Künast, on the other hand, defends her bill: “We don’t want anarchy on the fields”. She is calling on the CDU-run states to give up their ‘blockade policy’.

In its resolution, the Bundesrat lists in detail which passages it believes need to be amended. On the one hand, it wants the relaxation of procedures in the second package of amendments extended in places or fleshed out. But the Bundesrat’s key demands focus on provisions in the first package of amendments which are already in force:

Liability: In the view of the Bundesrat, a farmer who plants genetically modified crops should become liable for loss of income incurred by non-GMO neighbours as a result of GMO contamination only if he has not respected the rules of ‘good farming practice’.

The provision for joint and several liability of several neighbouring GMO farmers should be revoked.

Loss of earnings as a result of GMO contamination that cannot be traced back to culpable behaviour of individual farmers should be compensated for from a liability fund. Minister Künast is also in favour of such a fund, provided it is privately funded and no public money is used.

Entitlement to compensation should exist only if the conventional or organic farmer’s produce is found to contain more than 0.9 per cent GMO and must be labelled as a result.

Good farming practice: The Bundesrat does not regard a certificate of general GMO farming knowledge as necessary.

Outcrossing from field trials: Negligible, technically unavoidable GMO contamination from approved field trials should, in the view of the federal states, not be defined as bringing onto the market requiring approval.

Site register: The information in the publicly accessible part of the register should be restricted further so that people without a legitimate interest cannot tell which plots have genetically modified crops growing on them.

The coalition parties had made concessions in this direction even in the run-up to the Bundestag vote in March. The idea is that the public should not have access to precise plot details, but just to the municipality or sub-district.

Nature reserves: The Bundesrat rejects a special tolerance test for GMO cultivation in nature reserves. In its view, this is already adequately covered by the approval procedure.

Difficult search for compromise

Environmental and nature conservation associations had severely criticised the expected rejection of the bill even before the Bundesrat session. Leif Miller, head of the Naturschutzbund NABU, explains that “the actual aim of the Genetic Engineering Act – to protect people and nature – is not achieved with these proposals.”

In view of the wide gap between the red-green coalition on the one hand and the CDU/CSU representatives on the other, it is difficult to predict how the mediation committee can find a compromise, if at all.

If the legislative procedure is delayed again, Germany risks having to pay fines to the EU, since the Genetic Engineering Act has to be amended to implement EU law. The longer the delay in implementation, the higher the possible fines.