Potential conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency within the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) were publicly condemned by Greenpeace on Tuesday 7 March, speaking on behalf of a group of NGOs which are concerned at the threat to the impartiality of the opinion that ECHA is preparing on the toxicity of glyphosate. Among the group of NGOs are FoE, CEO, HEAL, PAN Europe, Global 2000, Générations futures, TestBiotech and Avaaz.
ECHA’s risk assessment committee (RAC) is due to discuss on 8 or 15 March the risks to health and to the environment of glyphosate, the most widely used total herbicide in Europe which the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) says is probably carcinogenic while the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) says it is probably not.
In an open letter to the ECHA, Executive Director Geert Dancet, on behalf of 20 health and environmental NGOs, Jorgo Riss, Director of the Greenpeace European Unit, says that RAC chair Tim Bowner and two RAC members, Slawomir Czerczak and Tiina Santonen, “appear to have a conflict of interest, according to ECHA’s own criteria”, having worked as consultants in the chemicals sector for 20 years. He also criticises ECHA’s practice of using unpublished industry studies in formulating its opinions.
Last year, the European Commission took the decision to extend the glyphosate licence until the end of 2017 at the latest, in the expectation that, before then, ECHA would deliver a verdict on the toxicity of the product (see EUROPE 11583).
“When we receive that opinion, we will be able to assess it, then we will, if necessary, further prolong the extension”, Commission spokesperson Enrico Brivio said recently.
A European citizens’ initiative, “Stop glyphosate”, was launched on 8 February in the hope of garnering 1 million signatures by 25 January 2018 to be able to call on the EU to ban glyphosate, to review the procedure for authorising pesticides and to set binding targets for reducing the use of pesticides in the EU. So far, close to 430,000 people have signed (see EUROPE 11722 and 11721). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)