Four years after the adoption of the recommendations of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on pesticides, much remains to be done to improve the transparency and accountability of the EU’s pesticide authorisation process, said MEPs on 27 April, during a review of its implementation. All were members of this body.
The PEST Committee, chaired by Eric Andrieu (S&D, French), was tasked with shedding light on this authorisation procedure after the controversial re-approval of glyphosate in the EU in 2017 for 5 years and without an exit plan (see EUROPE 12173/7, 12155/13). The re-approval procedure for this highly controversial active substance is underway.
The procedures for approving substances and products must be improved to avoid any conflict of interest and, while EFSA’s ethical rules could be strengthened, it is above all the absence of a common reference framework at European level that these MEPs are criticising.
“Member States can apply to conduct a risk assessment of a pesticide even though we know that they have neither appropriate ethical rules nor sufficient resources”, deplored Anja Hazekamp (The Left, Dutch).
These MEPs also denounced the insufficient application of the precautionary principle. “The benefit of the doubt is too often given in favour of maintaining the molecule: extensions are too systematically granted, as are derogations from bans, even if the recent ruling of the CJEU on neonicotinoids should make it possible to plug some of the gaps”, said Michèle Rivasi (Greens/EFA, French).
Kateřina Konečná (The Left, Czech) welcomed the possibility now offered to civil society by the Aarhus Regulation to challenge administrative acts of the Commission before the CJEU, but “transparency on committee meetings between Member States is still clearly insufficient”.
Eric Andrieu, for his part, wants “the abolition of all import tolerances for pesticides banned in Europe and a ban on the export of pesticides banned in the EU”.
According to a PAN Europe report, 15% of the recommendations have been acted upon.
To see the report: https://aeur.eu/f/6o9 (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)