BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The parliamentary director of the FDP parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, Johannes Vogel, is clearly in favor of deregulating green genetic engineering. "We Free Democrats support the Commission if the political overregulation for plants produced with new breeding methods is to be dismantled," reads a position paper of the politician, which is available to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Vogel thus distances himself from his Green coalition partner.

"The EU Commission's efforts to weaken risk assessment for plants produced using new genomic techniques are going in the wrong direction," a spokesman for the Green-led Federal Environment Ministry said in March. Vogel, on the other hand, stressed, "We must finally stop demonizing green genetic engineering and portraying it as unnatural. We must welcome progress and use it to make our future better." He points to possible benefits of new genetic engineering methods that could lead to less pesticide use and more resistant plants. Germany should be a driver rather than a bearer of concerns in the debate, he said.

In the summer, the EU Commission was able to propose relaxing rules on the approval of genetically modified plants. The sticking point is the question of whether or not organisms modified with the so-called gene scissors should fall under the strict conditions of European genetic engineering law. With the Crispr/Cas9 gene scissors, it is possible that the intervention is no greater than with conventional breeding methods./mjm/DP/mis