Brussels, 07/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - Uncertainty is strong and pressure on the European Commission was at its height on Monday 7 March as member state representatives were in discussion with the Commission on the latter's proposal that authorisation be renewed for glyphosate, the world's most used herbicide which had been classed by the WHO as a “probable carcinogen” though the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that it was “probably not”.
According to a source close to the matter, no vote had been taken by late on Monday afternoon and it was still not known whether a vote would be held on Tuesday when discussions were to resume at 11.00am in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (the PAFF committee).
On Monday morning, a group of environmentalist, public health and transparency NGOs (including PAN Europe, HEAL, CEO and WeMove.EU), campaigning against the renewal for the next 15 years of the authorisation, handed in a petition signed by 180,000 Europeans to Health and Food Security Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis and the member states' experts. The petition called quite simply for glyphosate to be banned, on the grounds that European Regulation 1107/2009 on the marketing of pesticides says that any active substance that may cause cancer must be banned.
A few days earlier, at the Environment Council on 4 March, several member states indicated that they would in all probability call for the vote to be delayed: Italy, in order to give the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and EFSA time to come to some sort of common view; the Netherlands, to allow time for reflection. France announced its opposition to renewal of authorisation (see EUROPE 11505).
The Commission's original plan was to propose a 15-year renewal for glyphosate and a ban on tallow amine, a toxic constituent, but many were unhappy at the idea that the Commission could consider renewing authorisation of this herbicide without a regulatory framework for endocrine disruptors (see EUROPE 11503). Commissioner Andriukaitis confirmed to environment ministers of Friday 4 March that, “before the summer”, he would bring forward criteria that will allow endocrine disruptors to be defined and that these criteria would be based on the WHO definition. With regard to glyphosate, he said, assessment of constituents is a matter for the member states. It is for the member states themselves to ban those constituents they do not wish on their own market. A European source said that the idea is to ask the member states to submit the names of the harmful constituents they want to ban so that a European list can be drafted.
The Commission is very cautious about glyphosate, said the commissioner, pointing out that EFSA had been asked to take account of the IARC report and that, as part of the peer review procedure, glyphosate was assessed by other national agencies than Germany's Bfr. “All of the testing bodies decided that it was probably not carcinogenic but, in light of the sensitivity of the issue, we will investigate in the standing committee whether the member states can come to agreement so a definitive judgment can be formed”, Andriukaitis told the press on 4 March.
Possible compromise from Commission. Given the scale of the controversy, driven primarily by the scientists (see EUROPE 11467 and 11461), the Commission may be willing to make a gesture. “Over the last few weeks, I have spoken to the various governments. We are ready to propose that the authorisation be reduced to 10 years and to encourage the member states to undertake very close and careful bio-monitoring. We will take as our basis the precautionary principle”, the commissioner added, giving assurances that the Commission was currently examining “how to bring more transparency to the evaluation, with disclosure of information from the industry”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)