The names of the 30 members of the European Parliament’s special committee on investigating the pesticides authorisation procedure in the EU, following the controversial authorisation of an extension in the glyphosate license, are now official.
The adoption by the European Parliament of the list of the 30 names from the different political groups (9 from the EPP, 8 from the S&D, 3 from the ECR, 3 from ALDE, 2 from the GUE/NGL, 2 from the Greens/ EFA, 2 from the EFDD and 1 from the ENF) passed without any hitches. This is because none of the names had been changed by the political groups on the list that EUROPE published on Wednesday (see EUROPE 11956).
With regard to the name of this future special committee, however, it was completely different and proved to be a complete headache. Only one name is almost entirely sure: it is definitely not going to be called the ‘PEST’ committee (which can also mean a nuisance in English), as the S&D had hastily baptised it previously and nor is it going to be the ‘GLYF’ committing (Committee for Glyphosate) as sought by the Parliamentary administration.
One source explained on Thursday that, “PEST has a bad ring to it for British and Dutch ears".
Brainstorming. The Conference of the Presidents of the Parliamentary Group got to grips with this extremely difficult problem on Thursday which, although apparently insignificant, is, with regards to the political divisions between European right and progressive forces, quite revealing.
The EPP is in favour of a special committee but is concerned about unfairly targeting pesticides or one company in particular and was quite vociferous in its refusal of both of the names suggested.
The Conference of the Presidents closed with a proposal that failed to satisfy anyone: the 'AUTH' Committee (Committee for Authorisation, in English) and made a request to the institution officials to come up with a better suggestion.
The brainstorming begun is still continuing. Some of these suggestions were merged, such as the ‘MONS' Committee (Committee on Monsanto), for which the French MEP and coordinator of the EPP at the special committee, Angelique Delahaye, rejected outright; the ‘AUPE' Committee (Pesticides Authorisation Committee) and the ‘EVAL' Committee but no forecast of a winner has been proffered.
The French MEP, Éric Andrieu (S&D) commented that after the mobilisation for setting up a special investigation committee in April 2017 and following the Monsanto Papers revelations, "the name of this committee should, to all intents and purposes, reflect the assessment objectives we set ourselves on the transparency of the agencies, authorisation process and use of pesticides in Europe".
It will now be up to the Conference of Presidents of the Group to make a decision on this question. It took more than nine months for the efforts of the left-wing MEPs (S&D, GUE/NGL, Greens/EFA) to give birth to a special committee, with a very specific mandate, for nine months, starting from its constituent meeting.
Another week will obviously be necessary for coming up with a name for this committee on which all the different political groups agree on and that is appropriate for the public at large. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)