Bayer is "they're crooks, but they're our crooks", basically, while Monsanto is Satan Inc.

In Germany Monsanto is 'the big evil American company' and Bayer is just a big company.

This actually matches what seems to be the prevailing attitude in the US. There's a lot of hate for Monsanto (extending all the way to conspiracy theories) but I don't hear Bayer especially called out as evil (at least compared with some others like Pfizer or Nestlé)

They are evil geniuses. They disguise by famously placing their football team at second place every time, so nobody fears them [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001%E2%80%9302_Bayer_04_Lever...

any chance this could help the perception of GMOs in Germany then?

>> legitimate ecological concerns <<

please explain, seems to me to be mostly about green politics.

No. GMOs are more or less banned throughout Europe for legitimate ecological concerns, with plenty of grassroots opposition in Germany. The fact that it's a field dominated by one of the more evil companies in the world is secondary.

to be more precise, they can be sold but then need to be labeled. Prob used in animal feedstock, but not attractive to market for human use in that form. I presume animal feed's still a significant market, but unsure if there's significant GMO market penetration there.

Only one GMO (a bt corn I think) could be planted in the EU, and used mostly in Spain, though there's some hope the new rules will enable pro-GMO countries to plant many more in the future (approval process was generally stuck in the Council because enough countries opposed GMOs; now they can just ban them on their own territory w/o preventing pro-GMO countries from using it, and avoiding a conflict is politically attractive).

I personally see it as an ecological gain, due to productivity and so landuse improvements, something europe has basically stagnated at since these bans.

Sad to hear not much chance of improvements in the political sphere on that front..

Sorry, but I have to call bullshit on that. What legitimate ecological concerns? As far as I can tell there has never been any evidence that Monsanto's GMOs cause any legitimate ecological problems. Plus Germany is known to be extremely anti-science, like when the green party wanted to shut down all the power plants despite ostensibly being the party you'd most expect to want to help the environment, not hurt it.