An explosive dossier has quietly made a come-back. A few days before the summer holidays, the European Commission put on the table of national experts on Thursday 19 July its draft legislation on derogations to authorise pesticides identified as endocrine disruptors, a carbon copy of the derogations withdrawn in early 2017 due to lack of support from the member states.
This is a highly problematic situation, explained Natacha Cingotti from the Alliance for Health and the Environment, because on the one hand, the Commission is reintroducing the concept of negligible risk, and on the other hand because it is not supposed to be discussed in comitology.
But hadn’t this dossier been concluded at the end of 2017? In fact, the member states adopted identification criteria for endocrine disruptors after long, tricky talks (see EUROPE 11925), but the Commission had to make a series of amendments to its initial proposal to obtain enough support. Thus, due to the differences of views among the member states, it had withdrawn its proposal aiming to authorise pesticides based on ‘negligible risk’ rather than ‘negligible exposure,’ as currently applies under Regulation 1107/299, promising to return to this later. Following a procedural irregularity denounced by the European Parliament, at the end of 2017, it also withdrew its proposal to authorise active substances specially designed to disrupt an organism’s endocrine system.
As foreseen, therefore, the Commission reintroduced its derogation based on negligible risk at the meeting of the standing committee for plants, animals, feed and food (ScoPAFF) on 19 and 20 July.
At present, a manufacturer may request a derogation if it can prove that the environment in which the substance evolves is closed and there is no contact with human beings, while recognising that the substance’s toxic properties are problematic. If, on the contrary, it is the risk that is taken into account, the assessment process will not try to take account of the interaction between the substance’s intrinsic danger on the one hand and exposure on the other, which can vary and is hypothetical.
The European Parliament does not seem to have been alerted, as demonstrated by a tweet from French S&D MEP Éric Andrieu, who says that that something that has never been seen before has happened – the special committee on the assessment of the pesticide authorisation procedure (PEST) has not yet issued its conclusions, but the European Commission is re-opening the question of endocrine disruptors and Regulation 1107/2009 on phytopharmaceutical products.
Industry seems quite satisfied. ‘In general we do not support the principle of regulation by derogation, as it does not provide the predictability needed for business to operate, and in particular for farmers to plan effectively for the future. However, given that this is the only route by which to make the ED criteria more workable, proportionate and science-based, and to avoid threatening the availability of products for farmers and the competitiveness of EU agriculture, we hope Member States will indicate support for it,’ explains Graeme Taylor.
It should also be noted that in the public consultation of the EU's overall strategy (‘framework’) for endocrine disruptors in toys, cosmetics and food packaging ends on 19 July so a proposal could be unveiled by the Commission as soon as next week, a timing that the NGOs find perplexing. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)