Brussels, 17/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - Due before the end of 2013, the European Commission says the scientific criteria it has now published for defining and identifying endocrine disruptors will sweep aside ambiguity and unnecessary controversy, but people, including ministers in EU member states, are already pointing out the notable gaps between Option 2b proposed by the European Commission and the definition of the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) and the WHO, on which the Commission says it took as its basis (see EUROPE 11571).
The draft implementing acts for the EU's pesticides and biocidal products regulations were unveiled too late for a debate to be tabled for the Environment Council meeting on 20 June (see EUROPE 11574), but it is still possible that some delegations will make some preliminary remarks after France, Denmark and Sweden said at the EPSCO Council on Friday 17 June that the criteria did not provide enough protection for health.
France does not want to lag behind the WHO definition. French Health Minister Marie-Sol Tourraine said at the EPSCO Council that France feels it is necessary to go as far as the WHO does in its definition to ensure that health protection measures can be taken when a product presents potential risks.
At a press conference in Brussels on 15 June, Health and Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said the proposal followed the WHO definition that an endocrine disruptor is a substance that has a proven negative effect on human health.
A reporter objected that that was not the WHO's definition. The commissioner retorted that the definition explains what an endocrine inhibitor is but the EU is a pioneer and wants to go further and develop a common scientific methodology.
Under the WHO/IPCS definition, an endocrine disruptor is a substance known or assumed to have caused undesirable effects on the endocrine system of human beings or animal species in the environment or which is the subject of proof from experimental in vivo trials, potentially supported by other information leading to strong presumption (see EUROPE 11571).
At the European Parliament, the Greens/EFA Group knows this only too well. Michèle Rivasi (Greens/EFA, France) said that under the European Commission's proposal, only the effect on human beings counts as proof, which in effect excludes most endocrine disruptors from legislation and has nothing to do with the Commissioner Andriukaitis' claims about the WHO definition. We are therefore new guinea pigs for the chemical industry, which must be delighted about such a restrictive and blinkered proposal, said the MEP, announcing that the ecologists would strongly oppose it at the European Parliament.
Katerina Konecna (GUE/NGL, Czech Republic) accuses the Commission of lying about its adoption of the WHO definition. She said that the WTO's definition “does not demand a proven effect on human health” and the Commission's proposal ignores the precautionary principle, which for a number of years has been an integral part of EU legislation. The Commission, she said, was endangering citizens' health.
A hazard-based system of derogations rather than a system based on assessment of danger could weaken the application of the criteria and lead to the legislation missing its target, warned Françoise Grossetête (EPP, France), given that the Commission in its regulations is proposing to turn the concept of negligible exposure into negligible risk.
“This is bad for the dropping of glyphosate”. Marc Tarabella (S&D, Belgium) points out that the report published by UNEP and the WHO in 2013 views endocrine disruptors as a world threat. He regretted that, under the terms of the European Commission's proposal, damaging substances identified on the basis of the proposed criteria will be banned, except in cases of negligible exposure to pesticides. “This doesn't look good when it comes to getting rid of glyphosate”, he warned. The appeals committee will decide on Friday 24 June (the day after the Brexit referendum whether to extend for 18 months the authorisation for this controversial pesticide, allowing time for the chemical products agency to say whether it is an endocrine disruptor and whether it is a carcinogen.
What the Commission proposes will not prevent diseases caused by chemicals that disrupt the endocrine system. The demands are so strict and the burden of proof so high that damaging effects on health will have to continue for years before a stop can be put to them, warns HEAL (Health and Environment Alliance). The NGO wants the EU to use the options backed by scientific consensus (options 3 and 4) because we have to make the best use of the existing proof and they can incorporate new proof. It adopts what has proven to be an effective practice of classifying chemicals in categories such as 'known,' 'suspected' or 'potential,' as is done for carcinogens. It urges member state experts to either reject the criteria or keep blocking them until they are substantially improved. The biocides committee meets on 9 July, and the permanent pesticides committee on 11 and 12 July. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)