Draft amendment to the Genetic Engineering Act is available

According to the agreement in the coalition agreement, a legal regulation was to be developed that would allow the federal states to independently determine the distances between GMO fields and those with conventional or organic farming. Such a regulation has been presented in the draft law amending the Genetic Engineering Act and the EC Genetic Engineering Implementation Act, as well as in the draft of a third regulation amending genetic engineering regulations. The drafts are currently in the public consultation phase.
The drafts essentially envisage an alignment of national wording with European law. Changes in European law have led to changes in terminology, necessitating adjustment.
The regulation for determining distances is contained in Section 16b Paragraph 7 of the GenTGE (Genetic Transplantation Act). This authorizes state governments to issue statutory regulations that deviate from the nationally applicable distances. The prerequisite for this is that these are necessary to take regional conditions into account. Regional conditions include, in particular, geographical or climatic conditions, agricultural business structures, spatial conditions, particularly area structures, or cultivation methods. While the federal distance regulations are objectively oriented towards the legal interests to be protected under Section 1 of the GenTG (Genetic Transplantation Act), this is the first time that distance regulations are permitted that are independent of the question of the risk potential of GMOs. From the perspective of companies and businesses wishing to cultivate GMOs, these are questionable under European and national law, as they restrict their economic activities regardless of the risk potential if a state makes use of them.
Furthermore, the draft contains an addition to the commission's responsibilities. According to this, the commission's responsibilities also extend to advising the federal government and the states on safety-relevant issues relating to genetic engineering, including synthetic nucleic acids. This is inconsistent in that it assigns the commission a task that is not clearly defined by the scope and definitions of the Genetic Engineering Act. However, an expert commission can only be assigned those tasks that fall within the scope of a law.
The same objection also applies to a planned amendment to Section 26 of the Genetic Engineering Act (GenTGE). A third sentence is to be added to Section 26 (4) of the Genetic Engineering Act (GenTG), according to which official orders can be issued in the event of the unintentional release of genetically modified organisms into the environment. This is concerning because the unintentional release of genetically modified organisms does not fall under the definition of release under Section 3 (5) of the Genetic Engineering Act and is therefore currently not covered by the scope of the Genetic Engineering Act. This latter question, in particular, is the subject of various discussions in the literature and case law and has not been conclusively resolved.

This publication can also be found on the website of the law firm Dr. Kauch .