Following the glyphosate saga, we now have a saga involving endocrine disruptors. On Wednesday 4 October, the European Parliament adopted an objection to the draft regulation establishing criteria to identify pesticides that have a dangerous disrupting effect on the hormonal system. The document strongly urges the Commission to revise its paper by removing, at the very least, the derogation on pesticides that are designed to have an endocrine disrupting effect.
The regulation in question establishes criteria for identifying pesticides that should be considered “endocrine disruptors”. In compliance with the regulatory procedure with controls, it received the qualified majority support of member states at the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF), which is responsible for pesticides and food. The Czech Republic was the only member state to vote against the proposal, while Latvia, Hungary, Poland and the United Kingdom abstained. Parliament and the Council now have a three-month deadline to oppose the text if they wish. This is what the Parliament's environment and public health committee did on 28 September (see EUROPE 11872) as did a majority of the European Parliament (389 votes against 235, with 70 abstentions) a week later.
Parliament's legal service says regulation is “illegal”
The resolution prepared by Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Netherlands) and Jytte Guteland (S&D, Sweden) is based on the principle that the Commission has exceeded its competencies in this dossier. It draws on a study undertaken by the European Parliament’s legal service, which denounces a procedural fault (see EUROPE 11866). According to this analysis, the Commission did not have the remit to introduce a new clause that allows for the commercialisation of active substances designed to disrupt the endocrine system of different organisms other than vertebrates (see EUROPE 11822). It should have done this by way of a new proposal amending the basic regulation (1107/2009) and not by an implementing act. The legal service also illustrates the consequences of the said clause (called for by Germany, it should be pointed out), which authorised, for example, pesticides targeting insects but which would have had a collateral impact on the modification of the hormonal systems of crustaceans from the same family.
During the debate preceding the vote, the day before, the Commissioner for Health, Vytenis Andriukaitis, rejected these criticisms. According to him, the European Commission regulation is completely legal. He emphasised that, “the European Commission has not exceeded its prerogatives insofar as the regulation being examined does not focus on the essential elements in the basic act and it complies with the general objectives”. He added that on this question, he also enjoyed the support of the Commission’s legal service.
What Parliament is seeking exactly
Despite this argument (also developed in a letter sent to MEPs), the European Parliament adopts its resolution for an objection but without the support of the EPP and a large section of the ECR, which voted against. The final resolution demands the withdrawal of the implementing regulation and the presentation of another proposal, without delay. It also calls for, in a different paragraph, the removal of the clause targeting disruptors that have been deliberately designed.
On the other hand, it does not include the other requests submitted by Mr Eickhout. These involve three sections in the proposal: the absence of a category (that help to identify “presumed disruptors”); greater coherence at a level of the definition of one of the three criteria used, namely the one on the “mode of action”; and the priority, during evaluations, on “scientific data generated in compliance with study designs agreed at international level”. These provisions did not obtain the support from the S&D group, which abstained on the terms of the vote requested by co-rapporteur, Mme Jytte Guteland.
The European Commission responded to this vote in a press release in which it indicated that it would now “look at possible future steps”. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)