The parry and thrust of questions and answers was particularly lively and positions entrenched in the hearing before the European Parliament’s PEST special committee of a representative of the German federal risk-assessment institute, the BfR, which played a key role in the procedure for the renewal of the glyphosate licence in the EU, representatives of the pesticides industry and two scientists on Tuesday 15 May.
While the BfR stated that it had done its work properly as the competent institute of the rapporteur member state (Germany), and dismissed any suggestion of conflicts of interest with the pesticides industry, conflicts of interest alleged by a scientist from Global 2000, the ECSA (European Crop Protection Association) representative stuck to his position, rejecting the suggestion made by several MEPs that the European authorisation procedure could be improved by putting an end to allowing companies applying for authorisation of a new active substance themselves to choose the rapporteur member state.
The copy-and-paste by BfR in its assessment report of around 100 pages of studies by Glyphosate Taskforce, to which Monsanto belongs, was at the very heart of this meeting.
“We carry out 3,500 assessments per year. Between 2012 and 2018, the BfR was the rapporteur in the assessment of 21 active substances. Thirteen are still being assessed. We delivered three positive assessments of active substances and four negative. Recently, 1,075 requests for authorisation have been submitted to us, and 109 have been refused”, stated Dr Andreas Hensel, President of the BfR.
He pointed out that the 400,000-page assessment report submitted to EFSA was “not the BfR’s report but that of the member states and of EFSA which examined it, made comment and adopted it” and that an addendum was attached in 2015 to take account of the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monograph. “We believe that we did our job. Glyphosate is the world’s most closely examined plant protection product, in full compliance with European rules. Over 1,000 scientific publications have been checked and re-read”, he stated. His desire for communication and transparency to be improved was welcomed by joint rapporteur Norbert Lins (EPP, Germany).
“The world’s top experts say that there is evidence of risks and all we get is the applicant’s presentation. The BfR took the basic data to conduct an independent assessment? Where is this assessment?” asked indignant joint rapporteur Bart Staes (Greens/EFA, Belgium).
Helmut Burtscher, a biochemist with Global 2000, pointed out that, in March 2015, IARC said that in two of the studies examined by the BfR “there was sufficient evidence of risk of kidney and blood vessel cancer and in August the BfR had to admit that the WHO was correct”, but without revising its conclusions. In all, eight studies, including three on lymphomas were ignored, he railed. He argued that “the industry can copy and paste what it wants but what is needed is independent evaluation. Unfortunately, that is not what we have”.
ECSA Director General Jean Philippe Azoulay said he wanted to change “the sector’s image”, suggesting that it had “not sufficiently explained the reasons for which there are pesticides that help safe and economically sustainable food production”. But he lambasted the European regulatory system which “seems to us to be ineffective and unpredictable, and which complicates the lives of companies”. In his view, the rapid alert system for food and feed “demonstrates the threats hanging over foodstuffs, and pesticides are not among them”. However, no answer was forthcoming to the question from Simona Bonafè (S&D, Italy) on her suggestions for improving the European authorisation system.
“Whether you like it or not, we’re here to bring forward suggestions for improvements in December”, said an annoyed Éric Andrieu (S&D, France), who chairs the special committee.
Mireille d'Ornano (France), EFDD Group coordinator, reproached the ECSA for having written to all MEPs calling on them to reject an amendment seeking a ban on all neonicotinoids in the EU before EFSA confirmed the following day the toxicity of these bee-killing pesticides. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)