5th workshop ("Treatment of Genetically Modified Organisms")

The Fifth Workshop entitled "Treatment of Genetically Modified Organisms" took place in Zagreb on 22 October 2004. It was designed for inspectors (sanitary, agricultural, phytosanitary, marketing, environment, and nature), representatives of different ministries, the State Inspectorate, GMO detection laboratory, Institute for seeding and nursery gardening, scientific commission members (for contained use of GMO and their introduction into environment) under the Nature Protection Act. The purpose of the Workshop was to inform the employees and professionals who will participate directly in the decision making on GMO applications and in their processing on the same applications in the EU.

The goal of this workshop was to give invited participants an overview of following topics:

• "Sampling, detection, identification and quantification of GMO’s";
• "Risk Assessment and Risk Management of GMO's for contained use, field release and placing on the market" and
• "The administrative procedures in handling requests".

The participants were then divided into three groups and had the practical experience related to them on the above topics. The lecturers were as follows: Dr. Harry A. Kuiper, chairman of European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) - GMO panel, Amsterdam; Dr. Maddalena Querci, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Milan; Dr. Dietmar Vybiral, Federal Ministry for Health and Women, Vienna.

Over 154 participants situated in 50 institutions were invited, comprised of 38 people in charge of laboratories, 64 representatives of Ministries and 16 inspectors. On the day of the workshop, 68 of the invited guests had attended (44.1%) from 30 institutions (60%). The majority of the people who attended the workshop were people in charge of laboratories (57.9%) then inspectors (43.7%) and the lowest attendance we had from representatives of the Ministries (34.3%).