Angry GM stalemate in Germany as researchers lobby against public control

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Angry GM stalemate in Germany as researchers lobby against

public control

 

" GM WATCH " <info

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 23:13:34 +0100

 

 

 

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Self-interested researchers have been lobbying against the tough

legislation the public want. theyeven argue that revealing where GM

crops are

being grown " jeopardizes the future of the major branches of innovation

in Germany. "

 

Donald J. Johnston of the OECD unwittingly went to the heart of things

when he said, " with modern biotechnology the world has discovered a

vast new field which is full of potential for creative activity and, for

the scientific community at least, patentable and profitable

innovations. "

http://ngin.tripod.com/fav.htm

 

Or as former Texas AW University entomologist John Benedict put it,

" The universities are cheering us on, telling us to get closer to

industry, encouraging us to consult with big business. The bottom line

is to

improve the corporate bottom line. It's the way we move up, get

strokes.... All of these companies have a piece of me. I'm getting

checks waved

at me from Monsanto and American Cyanamid and Dow, and it's hard to

balance the public interest with the private interest. "

http://ngin.tripod.com/fav.htm

 

The public interest has gone out of the window.

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Angry GM stalemate in Germany

Political parties and legislative bodies seem unable to resolve their

dispute over GM crops

By Grit Kienzlen

The Scientist, September 23, 2004

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040923/02/

 

Germany's two national legislative bodies were at loggerheads over

genetically modified (GM) plant legislation yesterday (September 22)

after

an arbitration panel that is supposed to conciliate between the

Parliament and Bundesrat failed to reach a consensus.

 

On July 9, the representatives of Germany's 16 provinces in the

Bundesrat - dominated by the Christian Democrat party - defeated a

bill that

had been approved by the Parliament (Bundestag), where Social Democrat

(SPD) and Green parties hold the majority.

 

The arbitration panel is supposed to mediate between Bundestag and

Bundesrat, but " the talks there are still extremely emotionally charged, "

Wolf-Dieter Glatzel, who represents the SPD faction in the panel, told

The Scientist. Each party accuses the other of irrationality, as they

struggle to draft a law that will allow commercial use of plant

biotechnology while being acceptable to opponents of the technology.

 

Originally, the federal government was supposed to implement EU

guidelines for releasing GM plants by 2002, but the law proposed by the

minister of consumer protection, Renate Künast, a member of the Green

party,

was fiercely criticized by all major research organizations, who called

it a " law of gene technology prevention. "

 

There are two major points at issue, both concerning liability in case

crops sown by conventional or organic farmers and contaminated by the

neighboring fields of GM farmers.

 

While the EU guidelines recognize a contamination only when it exceeds

a threshold level of 0.9%, the draft of the German law also

acknowledges economic damage to an organic farmer if the contamination

exceeds a

threshold that he or she has arranged individually with his customers.

 

Secondly, the law currently allows for all neighboring GM farmers to be

held liable for the damage collectively, even if they have personally

followed all rules of good agricultural practice. The German Farmers

Association therefore discourages its members from planting GM crops

because of incalculable economic risks.

 

An alliance of German research organizations, including the Max Planck

Society, the Fraunhofer Society, the German Research Foundation, and

the Conference of University Rectors, sent an open letter to the

arbitration panel last week. The letter said that the bill would prevent

experiments with GM plants, making internationally competitive research

impossible.

 

In addition to criticizing the liability rules, the research bodies

were unhappy that cultivation areas for GM plants would have to be

disclosed in a public registry, as experimental fields have been

destroyed

regularly by environmental activists in the past. The bill, the alliance

writes, therefore " jeopardizes the future of the major branches of

innovation in Germany. "

 

The European Commission has also criticized the German bill in a

detailed statement from July 26 for undermining EU regulations. If the

bill

is enacted without major changes, a legal procedure at the European

Court may be foreseeable.

 

The arbitration panel will meet again for further consultation by the

end of October, but members of the political opposition, such as

Christel Happach-Kasan from the Liberal party (FDP), don't believe

that the

governing parties will try to find a compromise. " Fundamental opposition

to green biotechnology is popular, but not enforceable in the EU any

more, " she said. The likely outcome will be that decisions will be left

to the courts, she said.

 

Links for this article

N. Stafford, " Law may stifle German science, " The Scientist, June 28,

2004.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040628/02/

Directive 2001/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of

12 March 2001 on the Deliberate Release into the Environment of

Genetically Modified Organisms and Repealing Council Directive 90/220/EEC

http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!pro

d!CELEXnumdoc & lg=EN & numdoc=32001L0018 & model=guichett

 

N. Stafford, " German GM wheat trials continue, " The Scientist, April

13, 2004.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040413/03/