The GMO legislation in the Baltic states was prepared using the EU directives as the guidelines. The European Council Directive 90/220/EEC is used as a basis for the Latvian and Estonian GMO law. However, it was replaced with a stronger directive 2001/18/EC in March 2001. The new directive says that the precautionary principle must be taken into account, as well as ethical principles, that it is necessary to ensure that the public is consulted and comments by the public should be taken into account. It mentions necessity for the rules of environmental liability, for monitoring of GMOs after their release in environment looking for the potential cumulative long term effects associated with the interaction with other GMOs and the environment (that also should be included in an environmental risk assessment beforehand). The directive explicitly states that a GMO should not be a human being. These demands are absent in Latvian and Estonian GMO legislation.
There are a few regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers and laws that cover this field in Latvia. The main is the regulation of the Cabinet of Ministers Nr.323 "Regulation of the use and distribution of the GMOs" adopted at September 2000. It sets general requirements for the contained use of GM micro-organisms (GMMOs), for the deliberate release into environment and placing on the market of the GMOs. The objective of the regulation is to avoid the potential harm to the environment, health, animals, biodiversity or property that could be done by GMOs.
In order to be allowed to use GMMOs, to release GMOs in the environment or to place them on the market, one has to get permission from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development or the Ministry of Welfare. The permission for the placing on the market of GMOs is valid for seven years. The application with the information that is asked for in the regulation should be submitted in the Board of the Monitoring of GMOs. It acts within the Latvian Food Center under the rules set by the Regulation No 322 of 2000. The GMOs' Board consists of scientists and representatives from ministries and other governmental institutions, including one person from the Latvian Union of Geneticists and Breeders that is an NGO (so theoretically the public is involved too). The Board looks through the applications and suggests to responsible ministries to give or not to give permission. It also has to co-ordinate monitoring of GMOs, to consult consumers and controlling institutions, to co-ordinate cleaning-up in the case of an accident and to inform public. There is not described a concrete procedure for the informing of society in the regulations. Nothing is written about involving public in the decision-making. The Board however has unofficially promised to put an information about the received applications and permissions given on the webpage of the Latvian Food Center.
It should be mentioned that there was more about the public participation
in the first drafts of the regulation but it get lost in the long process
of writing the document and getting approved it in all ministries concerned.
The State Sanitary Inspection, Inspection of the Environment, Plant Protection
Service and Pharmacy Service should control the following the regulation.
The Plant Protection Law sets that the State Plant Protection Service should
control the use of GMOs in the agriculture.
Latvia has signed the Orhus Convention that says that public has to have access to environmental information including the information on GMOs. That demand is now written in the Law on Environment Protection. The chapter 3.1 says that persons and organisations have the right to get an environmental information (that includes the information on the distribution and use of GMOs) from all the state institutions and local municipalities, in order to be able to say their opinion and to participate in decision making in relation to environmental protection. That information should be gathered by the state institutions and local municipalities and provided to public in an accessible and understandable form. The public should be informed about its rights and possibilities to get the information and participate in decision making. Public databases, registers and webpages should be made and updated. The state institutions and local municipalities should ensure that the part of public that wants to get involved in the decision making would get the necessary information in the decent time and that public opinion is taken into account.
Latvia is the only one from the three Baltic states that has not signed the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety.
Local inhabitants can try to avoid the proposed GMOs field trials by asking to carry out the environmental impact assessment. When the Latvian Law on EIA was prepared, the deliberate release of GMOs was included in the list of actions that need an obligatory EIA. Unfortunately that's not what the EU legislation is asking for, so someone from the Ministry of Environmental Protection took it out.
Latvian Patent Law does not allow to patent animals, plants and species but it allows patenting the GM micro-organisms.
The Regulation No. 46 of 2000 "The Regulation of Labelling Foodstuffs" demands to label food made of GMOs. According with the changes made in August of 2001, the food products can be unlabelled if there is not GM protein or DNA in the final product. The 1% threshold level was set for unintended contamination with GMOs. In such a case the producer or importer who is responsible for a proper labelling should be able to prove that it has tried to avoid GMOs. For GM food additives and flavourings, their properties that make them different from conventional additives should be shown on the label, as well as the materials in them that usually are not there and could cause harm to health or ethical problems.
In an annex of the regulation of the use and distribution of GMOs, it's written that food products that may contain GMOs but not always contains them, as well as products that possibly contain GMOs should be labelled as "The product may contain GMOs".
The foodstuff already on the market at the time when the regulation went into force (15th of October 2000) should receive permission till 1st of July 2000. It is supposed that the permission is given during 90 days after submitting an application. However, there has not been yet a single application neither for release into the environment nor placing on the market of a GMO. There are not products labelled as GM on the market. The tests made in other European countries let one to suppose that there still is GM foodstuff on the market, and that means that they actually are illegal. There is a laboratory for GMO testing in the Latvian Food Center, but there is no money for doing the tests. Probably the first tests will be made next year, maybe together with some institutions from the EU countries. Due to the lack of money, the State Center of Consumers Rights Protection has not started to work with the issue of GMOs.
There is a local rape-seed oil on the market and possibly some other products labelled as GMO free in Latvia.
The public awareness is rather low but constantly growing. In the public opinion poll in 2000, 72% of respondents wanted the GM food to be banned.
There is no information that GM crops were ever grown in Latvia or other GMOs released in the environment. Some scientists are working with GM micro-organisms. Monsanto, Aventis and Latvian starch company have been waiting for the GMO regulations to carry out the tests (in the last case for the Swedish potatoes with an increased starch content).
In 2001, the private company GENDB has been established. It is going to make a genome databases. The law on human genome research is drafted.