Brussels, 06/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - European Commission hopes of an end to the controversy about the weedkiller glyphosate and the indecision over its fate in the EU after 30 June were dashing in Brussels on Monday 6 June.
Member states experts on the plants, animals, food and feed (PAFF) committee were unable to reach the qualified majority decision required to approve - or reject - the Commission's final proposal to break the deadlock: a temporary technical extension of the approval licence of glyphosate until 31 December 2017 to allow the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to report on the level of toxicity of the active substance, in particular, its carcinogenicity and its endocrine perturbing properties (see EUROPE 11563).
Member states were called on, for the first time, to vote (see EUROPE 11554, 11553 and 11507), an indication that the Commission had really hoped that there would be sufficient support for its proposal to go forward. Twenty countries voted for the proposal, seven (Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and Portugal) abstained and one, Malta, voted against.
Time is of the essence as the approval for glyphosate in the EU runs out on 30 June.
“Tomorrow Commissioner (Vytenis) Andriukaitis will inform the College of Commissioners” (Ed: in Strasbourg, on Tuesday 7 June), said a Commission spokesperson. He did not answer the question from a journalist who asked the Commission about its responsibility with regard to internal market unity.
Appeals committee before end of June. Under the comitology procedure, where no qualified majority can be reached either for or against a proposal, the matter has to be referred to a committee of appeal. “This will happen before the end of June”, Enrico Brevio, Commission spokesperson on the environment confirmed to EUROPE. It will be for this committee to come to a decision by qualified majority of member states. If it fails, the decision will fall to the Commission, a situation which the Commission wants to avoid at all costs so as not to have to bear full responsibility for the call. Initially, 27 member states (all except Sweden) backed the conclusions of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that it is unlikely that glyphosate is carcinogenic. Commissioner Andriukaitis has made this point to the European press (see EUROPE 11563). The same message was pressed home on Monday. “So far, even though a majority of member states is in favour of the renewal, no qualified majority has been reached, in spite of the Commission's efforts to accommodate requests and concerns from a number of national governments, as well as from the European Parliament” again said a spokesperson in a press release, stating that the member states must now assume their responsibility and not try to hide behind the Commission.
Welcome scepticism. In the Parliament, Bert Staes (Greens/EFA, Belgium), the group's food safety spokesman, welcomed the outcome of the vote. “We applaud those EU governments who are sticking to their guns and refusing to authorise this controversial toxic herbicide. There are clear concerns about the health risks with glyphosate, both as regards it being a carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor. Moreover, glyphosate's devastating impact on biodiversity should have already led to its ban”, he said in a press release. Marc Tarabella (S&D, Belgium) said: “Many governments are hesitant about or are rejecting continued use of this Monsanto product. It's time to see reason and to stop putting citizens' health at risk. When strong doubts exist about the toxicity of a product, we must bring the precautionary principle into play and ban its use”.
Greenpeace says that the result of the vote shows that governments remain sceptical about the continued use of the controversial weedkiller. “Extending the glyphosate licence would be like smelling gas and refusing to evacuate to check for a leak. As long as there is no meaningful EU-wide restriction on glyphosate use, we will continue to live in a world that is awash in a weedkiller which is a likely cause of cancer”, commented Franziska Achterberg, on behalf of the organisation. Her colleague Mark Breddy added that the Commission had no EU-wide protection measure to limit human exposure to glyphosate.
The ECHA opinion is expected, in principle, by autumn 2017. The Commission proposal states that, should ECHA deliver a negative opinion, the Commission will: - adopt a regulation stating that glyphosate approval has not be renewed since the approval criteria have not been met; - establish the date of expiry of the approval period as the date of entry into force of the said regulation, even though this date precedes the expiry date of the approval.
Copa-Cogeca, which represents farmers and agri-cooperatives in the EU, has called for a 15-year extension of the licence of this the most widely-used weedkiller in Europe, and says the possibility of non-renewal of the licence would be catastrophic (see other article). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)