At their meeting in Brussels on Tuesday 5 March, European Environment Ministers expressed their concern about the risks posed by endocrine disrupters to human health and the environment. They urged the Commission to present strong measures for a harmonised approach.
"There are strong concerns on the part of European citizens, concerns which I believe are justified, on the basis of the most recent studies", said Romanian Environment Minister Leocadia Gavrilescu Graţiela, at the opening of the discussions. Denmark went even further by stating that the European Commission's action plan was "disappointing". The Ministers therefore called for three concrete initiatives: (1) review data sets to better identify endocrine disrupters; (2) establish a dynamic European list which also covers substances that are potentially endocrine disrupters; (3) ban the presence of these disrupters in cosmetics, toys and consumer products.
In response to these requests, the European Commission has highlighted the measures in its action plan presented on 7 November 2018 (see EUROPE 12132). The Commission confirmed that it would "soon" launch a review of cross-sectoral legislation, which should be completed in 2020, to ensure that the different regulations are well adapted to pesticide control objectives.
It should be noted that on 10 November 2018, the European Union adopted new criteria to identify and, ultimately, ban active substances that could be qualified as endocrine disrupters. To this end, it has also adopted a Commission Implementing Regulation (Regulation 2018/1659). "At this stage, no active substances have been identified as such, but we have referred 5 mandates to the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) to date. The Commission has also taken several decisions not to renew authorisations", commented the Commission spokesperson. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)