On Wednesday 3 July, the European Commission refused to accept any comments on the vote, which took place the day before in the lower house of the Austrian Parliament, in favour of a ban on glyphosate on its territory.
In the name of the precautionary principle, a majority of MEPs supported an amendment to ban the placing of products containing glyphosate on the market.
In November 2017, the EU renewed the licence for the active substance glyphosate for 5 years, until 15 December 2022, with the background of scientific controversy over the carcinogenicity of the substance.
It is the competence of the Member States to authorise or prohibit products containing the active substance in their territories.
Invited by EUROPE to react and say whether Austria would be in its right if such a law were adopted, the Commission evaded the question. "We will not comment on draft laws of Member States that have not been communicated to the Commission. In the framework of the ‘Single Market Transparency Directive’ (Directive (EU) 2015/1535), Member States are obliged to notify to the Commission of all draft technical regulations before they are adopted in national law. This is a preventive, technical mechanism providing the Commission and the Member States with the opportunity to react", replied the spokesperson for Health and Food Safety. The re-evaluation of glyphosate in the EU will start next December (see EUROPE 12241/8). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)