Brussels, 22/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - While perhaps not reaching its conclusion, the European glyphosate saga could take a fresh twist on Friday 24 June when member state experts, meeting in the committee of appeal, will be called on to decide by qualified majority on the proposal for the temporary extension of 18 months at most (until 31 December 2017) of the approval of this most controversial of weed-killers (see EUROPE 11566).
Glyphoexit? The experts' decision or failure to come to a decision could, however, pass unnoticed on the day after the UK referendum, particularly if the vote is to leave the EU. Opponents of glyphosate, an active substance deemed by the WHO to be a probable carcinogen and suspected of being an endocrine disruptor, are starting to dream of a “Glyphoexit”. They are stepping up their efforts to try to win over the votes of member states, such as Germany, where opinion is divided and which abstained in the committee on plants, animals, food and feed (PAFF committee) vote on 6 June (see EUROPE 11568).
The European Commission is still hoping that the member states will be successful, this time, in reaching the qualified majority needed to approve its proposal. If, as is probable, no qualified majority can be found, the Commission will take the decision itself, as it is empowered to do under the comitology procedure. It is possible that it will authorise the technical extension of the licence that 20 member states backed on 6 June, even though the thought of taking sole responsibility for such a decision is not one that is to its liking.
It could then bring forward two proposals for a complementary decision seeking, on the one hand, to ban the coformulant POE-Tallowamine in plant health products containing glyphosate and, on the other, addressing recommendations to member states to restrict the use of glyphosate in public parks and gardens and in the period prior to harvesting, as Health and Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis announced (see EUROPE 11563). These proposals, in their draft state, take the form of amendments to implementing regulation 540/2011 on active substances approved in the EU.
They could be put to the PAFF committee when it meets on 27-28 June. This could be the last chance before the 30 June deadline when the current glyphosate licence in the EU expires.
Initiative by 70 MEPs to push Germany not to abstain. In the knowledge that their country's abstention is due to the opposing positions held by the Federal economy and environment ministers, two German Green MEPs, Martin Häusling and Maria Heubuch, published an open letter on Tuesday 21 June to the Federal ministers for agriculture, Christian Schmidt, and the environment, Barbara Hendricks, calling on them to vote against the technical extension to the licence and to demand that the Commission bring forward a proposal that, for the good of sustainable agriculture, glyphosate should not be authorised.
The letter has been signed by 70 MEPs from 6 political groups (26 Greens/EFA, 28 GUE/NGL, 7 EFDD, 5 S&D, 1 Alde and 2 EPP) and one non-attached. It states that, “over and above the controversy which it has aroused over the probability that it is a carcinogen”, glyphosate is “a 'total' herbicide which, in recent national and international debates, has raised major concerns with regard to the current agricultural model, which is dependent on the excessive use of pesticides” and calls on the two ministers to “pave the way for a new, sustainable and non-toxic agricultural model”.
French Environment Minister Ségolène Royal announced in Luxembourg on 20 June that her country, which abstained on 6 June “will vote against glyphosate” in the appeals committee (see EUROPE 11576). European farming organisations continue to hope that glyphosate, the most used herbicide in Europe and the world, will be authorised for a further period of 15 years (see EUROPE 11568). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)