Development of Biosafety System in Latvia

Abstract

The concept of biosafety was developed and the establishment of a regulatory framework to ensure human and environmental safety has become essential to biotechnology development. The studies dedicated to issues related to: 1) implementation of European Union (EU) policy in the sphere of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Latvia and 2) development of national biosafety system in accordance with EU and international legislation and recommendations, where the aim of system is to ensure the safe circulation of GMOs based on scientific risk assessment. The result of studies showed that acting Latvia’s biosafety system,whose key elements: national policy, regulatory system or legislation and institutional system, inter alia research and scientific capacity, has been developed in accordance with EU and international requirements, guidelines and recommendations, but still a lot of effort is required to improve its capacity and management. Latvia’s institutional system which is responsible for biosafety system, implementation of GMOs policy and for handling notifications and requests for GMOs use and/or authorisation is more or less developed, but for ensuring its effective operation andeffectiveness it is necessary to build capacity of institutions connected with risk assessment, and institutions that are responsible for handlingnotifications. Therefore possibleways to improve this system and to make it more efficient are suggested. To ensure effective implementation of national biosafety policy, it is necessary to strengthen institutional and to allocate the funding for development of scientific based risk assessment.