POSITIONS
The Pesticide Action Network Europe, an environmental campaign group, said the EFSA opinion violated the precautionary principle. "EFSA only concludes to adverse effects in case of overwhelming evidence; in case of doubt they give the advantage of the doubt to industry instead of giving priority to the protection of human health and the environment,” said Hans Muilerman, Chemicals Officer at PAN Europe.
PAN Europe said EFSA’s work is "a copy of the German Government agency BfR’s assessment and the pesticide industry dossier compiled by the Glyphosate Task Force, hiding and misinterpreting the tumour incidences from experimental studies. This opens the road to the re-authorisation of this dangerous pesticide in the EU, which was recently classified as ‘probable human carcinogen’".
In the European Parliament, the Greens were equally dissapointed. "There is a sad predictability about EFSA’s decision to play down the risks associated with glyphosate," said Martin Häusling, the Green’s agriculture and public health spokesperson. "The finding that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans by the WHO should be leading to a global moratorium on its use. However, the industry lobby has been actively sowing seeds of doubt to maintain its products on the market, at the expense of human health. The ground for today’s EFSA opinion had already been laid by the German risk assessment authority."
"This whole saga again raises serious questions about the flawed risk assessment procedure employed by EFSA, notably as regards its reliance on industry-supplied data, which necessarily skews its findings. There is a need to reform this to reduce the potential conflict of interest. Until this is done, the Commission [should] not continue to approve substances for which there is evidence of risks to human health."
BACKGROUND
Amid growing public concern over the impact of pesticides, the European Commission in 2006 presented a ‘pesticides package’ aimed at protecting human health and the environment from their dangerous or excessive use in agriculture.
Agreement on the package was reached in December 2008. The new regulations divide the EU into three zones (north, centre, south) inside of which mutual recognition of pesticides will become the rule.
>> Read: EU reaches deal on banning toxic pesticides
However, member states will still be allowed to ban a product on the basis of specific environmental or agricultural circumstances:
- Certain highly toxic chemicals, namely those which are genotoxic, carcinogenic or toxic to reproduction (unless their effect would in practice be negligible) including neurotoxic, immunotoxic and certain endocrine-disrupting substances, if deemed to pose a significant risk.
- Asks member states to adopt national action plans on safer use of pesticides as well as overall usage reduction targets
- Bans aerial crop spraying, with exceptions subject to approval by member-state authorities.
- Asks member states to establish approporiate measures, such as buffer zones, to protect aquatic organisms.
- Bans the use of pesticides in public places, such as parks and school grounds, or at the very minimum asks for their use to be restricted.
The European Parliament voted to seal the agreement in January 2009.