Recently, the German Minster for Consumer Protection, Mrs Renate Künast, described the final passing of the Consumer Protection Law by the German Bundestag to be an important step for consumer protection in Germany. By this law, the necessary legal basis would be created for two new federal institutions. Mrs Künast had started the constructive staff for both institutions by ministerial edict at the end of 2001.

The new institutes are:

·The Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung (BfR; federal institute for risk evaluation), responsible for risk evaluation and –communication;
and
·the Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (BVL; federal office for consumer protection and food safety), responsible for the improvement of the cooperation between the Federal Government and its Länder (federal lands in Germany) and the cooperation of these two and the EU institutions for control and surveillance.

This allocation of responsibilities will help to avoid the conflict between risk evaluation and –management. At the same time it is secured that the BfR can do the risk evaluation without being subject to any political and economical influence.... Establishing this new authority, we do create a milestone in putting through the consumers’ rights internationally, says Mrs Künast.

And once again control committees are established where agriculture is not represented. Risk evaluation and risk management, consumer protection and food safety: all these are used to ensnare the public with sort of a consumer friendly populism. The farmers as well as the food industry, however, are treated like felons who must be kept under supervision not only by the Ministry for Consumer Protection but by two further institutions from now on.

Apart from the administrative work that will have to be done in order to establish and then operate the BfR and BVL, it remains questionable whether the effectiveness of control will still be given if tasks are redistributed. It is not the quantity of institutions which is important but the quality of the work that is done. So, if the consumer protection is redistributed between three institutions, problems in communication will certainly arise between the individual sections. Thus, the goal originally aimed at, namely putting through the consumers’ rights, will most probably drop out of the running.

Seeing that – before everything has started - Mrs Künast is now glad already that she finally is able to protect the consumers’ rights without any economical influence on it, the German farmers would give up expecting anything good for their profession. If economical interests of the farmers are of no importance whatsoever for the practical realisation and will even be excluded deliberately, such concept is already doomed to failure.

In addition to that, the example of nitrofuran shows how severe the problems of the German lands are already upon the realisation of Mrs Künast’s dreams of consumer protection. The Lower Saxony Minister for Agriculture, Mr Uwe Bartels, declared in a press release that it would only be of little help that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture addressed the Länder with apprehension in the case of nitrofuran and asks them to make available the capacities which are necessary for investigations. The BMVEL (federal ministry for consumer protection, nutrition and agriculture) should not handle the EU commission - which is responsible for the protection against poor products from third countries - with kid gloves and spur on the federal lands. They should rather realise consequently an initiative of the Bundesrat (upper house of the German parliament) for consolidating the practice of granting permissions to control residues left in the products of third countries exported into the EU by the EU commission, criticised Mr Bartels in a letter he recently sent to Mrs Künast.

There were indications to a faulty system, if so much time and money were necessary to prove forbidden substances in imported food. The EU would have to bring this to an end. And the federal government would have to insist firmly on it, added Mr Bartels.

Again, Mrs Künast wants to present herself as the green angel of consumer protection. She forces the federal lands, which are subordinate to her, to take steps rashly – without waiting for rules that go for all EU countries. This way, she incurs the all too comprehensible anger of the subordinate ministries. In this situation, even the newly established institutions will be of no help for bringing forward the consumer protection. It is necessary to find uniform EU rules and guidelines and – at long last – to more consequently control all imports from third countries.

Whoever thinks he can deceive the consumers by superficial activism and thus be able to hide the missing competence in solving problems will - in the long run - lose any authorisation to be a minister!