Brussels, 06/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - Glyphosate, a chemical pesticide classified as probably carcinogenic by the WHO - though EFSA judged that it was probably not - is present in everyone's body, state the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament.
Hence the invitation by the ecologists to their colleagues in the Parliament and to Health and Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis to find out for themselves by submitting urine samples for laboratory analysis, Bert Staes (Belgium) announced on Wednesday 6 April.
The campaign was launched by Staes and his colleague Michèle Rivasi (France) a week before Parliament votes - in Strasbourg probably on Wednesday 13 April - on the motion of objection to the European Commission proposal to authorise this Europe's most widely used - and most controversial - pesticide for a further 15 years (see EUROPE 11525).
“We hope to gather 150 urine samples for analysis by the Leipzig laboratory”, Staes told a group of journalists. He said he was “confident” that Parliament would veto the proposal for authorisation without any restrictions other than the ban on tallowamine “a co-formulant not used by Monsanto”, he indicated. The Greens will put down amendments to the motion of objection, underlining that alternatives to glyphosate are available on the market. The EPP Group is also expected to table amendments.
“We have also written to Commissioner Andriukaitis and to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker specifically asking them to take part in this initiative in the hope that this test on their own bodies might influence their position”, said Martin Haüsling (Greens/EFA, Germany) in a press release. The Greens/EFA Group have welcomed that the commissioner wrote to Taskforce Glyphosate, a consortium of multinationals chaired by Monsanto, on 4 April to ask it to publish the studies submitted by the industry to EFSA. “It's a good start”, in the group's view. It points out, however, that the European Commission, under European rules on access to documents, should have acceded sooner to the request by a number of MEPs and demanded publication of this material, when overriding interest, such as public health, must prevail over confidentiality. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)