Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment

In accordance with the horizontal Management of Genetically Modified Organisms Act (Official Gazette of the RS 23/2005 and 21/10), the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning is competent for the issuing receipts of the entry of the premises for contained use and permits for working with GMOs in contained use in the register of GMOs, for the deliberate release of GMOs into the environment and for placing GMOs as products or in products on the market.  

For decisions regarding the areas of use of GMOs excluded by the provisions of the Management of Genetically Modified Organisms Act (medicinal products, food and feed),the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment and the Ministry of Health are competent.

In accordance with the Decree implementing Regulation (EC) on transboundary movements of genetically modified organisms (Official Gazette of the RS 72/2005), the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment is also competent for the implementation of the Regulation (EC) No 1946/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 July 2003 on transboundary movements of genetically modified organisms. The Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment functions as a contact point and prepares and sends to the agency the information on biosafety (BCH) and the required reports, information and data to the Commission, it co-operates with the other competent authorities (the Ministry of Health), receives the issue or copy of the information before the first intentional transboundary movement of the GMO intended for intentional release into the environment and notifies the public, the Commission, member states and other affected or potentially affected countries and the BCH on possible unintentional transboundary movement of the GMOs.