Parliament voted on Tuesday 11 December in Strasbourg in favour of a revision of general European food law to improve the transparency and accountability of risk assessments of certain substances such as pesticides, food additives or GMOs carried out by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
This proposal revising the 2002 European Regulation that established the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was presented by the European Commission last April as a response to the European Citizens' Initiative 'Stop Glyphosate' (see EUROPE 11999). In the absence of a ban on glyphosate, the institution intended to address concerns about the lack of independence and inaccessibility to the public of scientific studies used for pesticide evaluation.
By a comfortable majority (427 votes in favour, 172 against and 67 abstentions), the European Parliament adopted all the amendments voted by its Environment Committee (see EUROPE 12147). The voted text provides for strengthening EFSA's budgetary and human resources, giving it the possibility to require additional studies in case of scientific controversy and introducing a new procedure for pre-submission of data by companies applying for authorisation to speed up the procedure, EFSA being able to provide advice on how to provide all the required information.
It also and above all provides for all scientific data submitted by industry as part of an application for authorization to be made public. This is done as soon as these applications are submitted, as proposed by the Commission.
The amendments reintroduced by the EPP Group to preserve the confidentiality of company data at an early stage were rejected. Germany's Renate Sommer (EPP), rapporteur, who had already voted against the amended report in committee, announced that she was withdrawing her name from the text, as she could not accept this result. According to her, it exposes companies to the risk of intellectual property theft.
Mandate has been given to open negotiations with the Council once it has established its position.
NGOs are reassured. “As citizens we expect our policy makers to take decision that concern our health and safety that are free from industry-bias and independent from industry’s financial stakes", commented Angeliki Lysimachou of the NGO PAN Europe (Pesticide Action Europe). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)