The message sent by MEPs to the European Commission on Tuesday 24 October was a very clear one, when they voted by majority to veto the proposal that seeks to renew the glyphosate licence, which is due to expire on 15 December, for a further period of ten years.
MEPs are calling on the Commission to go back to the drawing board and, instead, propose a total ban on glyphosate from 15 December 2022, with a five-year transition period.
The five years’ respite for this active substance in Monsanto’s total herbicide – the world’s most used and the most controversial – is to give farmers the time to prepare for the new order, with very strict restrictions on usage. From 15 December 2017, use in farming will be banned where organic alternatives to glyphosate exist – such as integrated pest management systems. Non-professional use of glyphosate by individuals and local authorities in public areas is to be banned on the same date.
The message was aimed, too, at the member states, whose experts will vote on the Commission proposal on Wednesday when they meet in the standing committee on plants, animals, food and feed (PAFF committee) (see other article).
The objection passed by a comfortable majority (355 votes to 204, with 111 abstentions) is certainly less tough than the objection adopted by the environment committee which called for a total ban on glyphosate within three years, that is, at the end of 2020 (see EUROPE 11887). But it does maintain the spirit, thanks to a compromise reached by the EPP and S&D Groups, much to the displeasure of the GUE/NGL Group, which voted against. The conservatives, too, were unhappy as they backed the Commission’s initial proposal.
Peter Liese (EPP, Germany) was pleased that “a large majority accepted the compromise allowing the use of glyphosate for five years only and under very tight restrictions”.
“Banning glyphosate and helping farmers move to another farming model was our absolute priority. Extending the licence of this potentially toxic substance would have been considered as failure to assist consumers and farmers in danger”, commented Eric Andrieu (France) and Marc Tarabella (Belgium). These two S&D MEPs are calling for a committee of enquiry into the Monsanto Papers to be set up (see EUROPE 11881).
“Banning glyphosate is a position that both protects health and is responsible towards farmers”, stated French Green MEP Michèle Rivasi, shadow rapporteur on this issue, regretting that the timescale for ending the use of glyphosate had been extended by two years. She added: “we support the states which, tomorrow, will oppose the irresponsible renewal of this substance, as the Commission is proposing”.
Kateřina Konečná (Poland) said that her GUE/NGL Group had voted against the compromise “on public health grounds” though also because of the “manipulation of scientific studies”, revealed by the Monsanto Papers and by the desire to “force the Commission finally to hear what citizens are saying” in signing the “Stop glyphosate” European citizens’ initiative (see EUROPE 11879).
In the same way as its environment committee, the Parliament justifies its objection by concerns for human and animal health and protection of the environment, and also by the differences in the risk assessments by scientific experts from the WHO, for whom the active substance glyphosate is a probable carcinogen for humans, and the European agencies, EFSA and ECHA, which concluded that it was probably not.
MEPs also highlight the doubt cast by the Monsanto Papers over the credibility of the European risk assessment and call for European agencies to be given greater means in future to be able to carry out their own studies. The EU authorisation procedure should be based exclusively on independent, published studies that have undergone peer review.
An objection by the Parliament is not legally binding but the Commission showed signs the same day of a willingness to take account of the vote in seeking to garner a qualified majority of member states on Wednesday. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)