What promises to be a very intense week on glyphosate, the active substance in the highly controversial total herbicide from Monsanto, began on Monday 23 October, and calls for the Commission to re-assess its position have increased without there being any indication – at least not officially – that the institution is about to amend its proposal that authorisation be renewed for a period of ten years.
Health and Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis “will update” his fellow commissioners when meeting in Strasbourg on Tuesday “on the state of play around glyphosate”, the Commission said on Monday. The update will come only a few hours after the plenary session of the European Parliament has put its environment committee’s objection calling for immediate restrictions on the use of glyphosate and a total ban by 15 December 2020 (see EUROPE 11887) to the vote.
An objection is not legally binding but, given the extent of the concerns raised by this active substance, which the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer says is potentially carcinogenic to humans, it could be supported by a majority of MEPs, a parliamentary source suggested on Monday. The current glyphosate licence expires on 15 December of this year.
To a journalist who asked why the Commission intended to submit the proposal as it stands to a vote by member state experts on 25 October when it will not command the required qualified majority and after the Commission has made clear that it will not, on its own and without a qualified majority, take a decision on authorising glyphosate, health and food safety spokesperson Anca Paduraru replied: “For a revised proposal to be submitted, a request for amendment of the current proposal is required”.
The European Commission has the power to take the initiative and amend its proposal. “That’s correct”, acknowledged head spokesperson Margaritis Schinas, alongside Paduraru, “but in view of other elements, we’ll wait till tomorrow”.
As well as the environment committee, which wants glyphosate to be banned within three years, France hopes that the EU will reach agreement before the end of the year to prohibit the use of glyphosate within five years.
On Monday morning, Commission Vice-President with responsibility for Sustainable Development Frans Timmermans and Commissioner Andriukaitis met the organisers of the European citizens’ initiative “Stop glyphosate”, which has garnered 1.3 million signatures in record time and was duly registered on 6 October. The organisers set out in detail the terms of the ECI, calling on the Commission to propose to the member states that glyphosate be banned, that the procedure in the EU for authorising pesticides be reformed, and that binding targets be set for reducing the use of pesticides. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)