Vote cancelled. Although it had planned to include it on its agenda, the European Commission did not carry out a vote on proposals regarding endocrine disruptors, at a meeting of the PAFF committee of national experts on Wednesday 21 December, as there was not enough support to ensure a qualified majority.
Readers may recall that in mid-June, the Commission presented three criteria to identify (and therefore ban) chemicals that interfere dangerously with the hormone system: (1) the appearance of undesirable effects; (2) the mode of endocrine action (which explains the effect at cellular and molecular level); (3) a correlation between the first two criteria (see EUROPE 11573). However, it proposed to introduce a derogation to this principle: chemicals – pesticides and biocides – that present a negligible risk following exposure may continue to be sold.
Since March, it has been in intense discussions with the member states with a view to obtaining support of a qualified majority of them. It has made marginal changes on a number of occasions. On 13 December, it also decided to go along with Germany's request to extend the scope of the derogations further. The text on the table of the member states on 21 December therefore proposed authorising pesticides which act on the hormone systems of insects or plants considered harmful in order to exterminate them. According to the analysis of the newspaper Le Monde, this was mainly a nod made by Germany to the industry: in 2013, employees of BASF, Bayer and Syngenta defended the idea of a derogation for what they describe as "endocrine disruptors by design". However, this provision did not win over the member states: Sweden, Denmark and France still feel that the criteria selected do not sufficiently cover hazardous substances. Readers may recall that these three countries wanted to introduce "proven, presumed and suspected" categories of disruptors. In a letter dated 19 December, Denmark expresses particular concern at the high level of evidence required, the lack of consistency with current legislation and the failure to abide by the principle of precaution. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)