Switzerland prides itself on its fundamentally liberal legislation – in terms of the labor market and tax policy, it is often considered particularly liberal by international standards. However, it is in danger of falling behind in certain areas of innovation. The latest example is the regulation of new genomic breeding methods. While approvals are progressing worldwide, and especially in the EU, Switzerland is holding back – with potentially serious consequences for research, agriculture, and competitiveness.

The new breeding methods offer great opportunities. For example, they enable plants and organisms to be adapted quickly and specifically to increasingly difficult environmental conditions. These approaches would bring major advantages for local agriculture in particular, as they can increase heat resistance or improve resistance to pests, for example.

Unfortunately, however, Switzerland is dragging its feet when it comes to this innovation. The new approaches currently fall under the moratorium on genetic engineering that has been in place since 2005. The Federal Council wants to change this. Its proposal is to extend the moratorium on traditional genetic engineering until 2030. At the same time, however, it wants to allow plants from new breeding methods under certain conditions. In doing so, it hopes to find a solution to the deadlocked genetic engineering debate. What sounds good at first glance seems less effective on closer inspection, as an article in the NZZ points out.

In it, professors and researchers in Switzerland express their disappointment with the Federal Council's proposal. Beat Keller, professor of molecular biology at the University of Zurich, is one of them: “After reading it, I have to say that the new law poses just as much of an obstacle for us researchers as the previous regulations on traditional genetic engineering.” It seems as if the administration has drafted a bill that suggests openness but in practice leaves little room for progress. Given that actual liberalization is currently being negotiated in the EU, people in Switzerland are alarmed. Professor Keller is convinced that the currently proposed regulation will cause Switzerland to “fall behind internationally.”

Jan Lucht, biotechnology expert at the Scienceindustries association, shares this view: if the law were implemented in its proposed form, it would “effectively amount to a ban on new breeding technologies in Switzerland.” Swiss farmers would face competitive disadvantages compared to their competitors in neighboring countries.

Quite different are the voices from opponents of genetic engineering: the current proposal goes much too far, they say, and the Federal Council is trying to “sneak” genetic engineering past the public. And of course, the reference to risk is not missing either: even the most precise cut can have diverse effects on the level of metabolism, the organism, or the ecosystem, “which are hardly predictable,” says Zsofia Hock, scientific officer of the Swiss Alliance for a GMO-Free Switzerland.

Aside from the fact that there is broad scientific consensus that the new approaches are safe, and that we have long had genetic engineering on our plates, since hundreds of food products were bred through classical mutagenesis: it should give us pause that the Federal Council is apparently pushing forward a proposal that in reality amounts to a step backwards. Yet right now it would be particularly important for the government to move ahead boldly. Because: if Switzerland continues to maintain an effective blockade of the new breeding technologies, it endangers not only its international competitiveness but also the food security of the future. It is high time for bold, science-based legislation.