Europe Okays Controversial Weed Killer

Summary

The European Commission approved a five-year renewal of the license for glyphosate, a com­mon weed killer, with 18 EU states vot­ing in favor and nine against, includ­ing Germany, which swayed the result. Despite oppo­si­tion from civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions and the European Parliament, the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency have deemed glyphosate safe for use.

On November 27^th, the European Commission approved a licence renewal for glyphosate, an active ingre­di­ent in many com­mon weed killers.

Eighteen EU states voted in favor of the licence renewal for a period of five years, with nine vot­ing against, and one absten­tion. Opposing the renewal were Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, and Malta.

But it was Germany’s vote that swayed the result in favor of the five-year renewal. With Germany in favor, the required thresh­old of 65 per­cent (of the EU pop­u­la­tion) was passed by a small mar­gin accord­ing to the rules of qual­i­fied major­ity.

Christian Schmidt, Germany’s agri­cul­ture min­is­ter, appar­ently acted alone when he voted in favor of the motion. German Chancellor Angela Merkel con­firmed at a press con­fer­ence that Schmidt, who is a mem­ber of her Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) party, did not take the posi­tion of the German gov­ern­ment.

Schmidt was expected to abstain on behalf of Germany, as he did in a pre­vi­ous vote. This caused a polit­i­cal stir in Germany where there are ongo­ing efforts to form a coali­tion after the elec­tions in September did not result in a major­ity gov­ern­ment. Barbara Hendricks, envi­ron­ment min­is­ter and mem­ber of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), described Schmidt’s action as a breach of trust.

Civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions are dis­ap­pointed that the motion passed despite a peti­tion by 1.3 mil­lion European cit­i­zens ask­ing to ban the pes­ti­cide. Meanwhile, the pro­posal of the European Parliament had been to phase it out over the next five years.

In 2015, the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer had clas­si­fied glyphosate as ​“prob­a­bly car­cino­genic to humans,” but other stud­ies con­tra­dict it. According to the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency, glyphosate is safe to use.

Monsanto was hop­ing the licence would be renewed for 15 and not five years, and tweeted that ​“glyphosate has ful­filled all require­ments for a full 15-year renewal.” Glyphosate is the active ingre­di­ent in Monsanto’s Roundup.

Copa and Cogeca, the EU farm­ers’ orga­ni­za­tion, also expressed dis­ap­point­ment that the re-approval was lim­ited to five years, as did European Crop Protection, which rep­re­sents the pes­ti­cide indus­try, with its spokesper­son say­ing that orga­ni­za­tions cam­paign­ing against glyphosate ​“rely on fear rather than sci­ence.”

Luis Morago, cam­paign direc­tor at Avaaz, one of the orga­ni­za­tions who lob­bied for a ban, had this com­ment on the Euractiv web­site: ​“Monsanto thought they’d win 15 years of glyphosate with their eyes closed but had to fight tooth and nail for five with restric­tions. Today, Germany bowed to that cor­po­rate pres­sure, ignor­ing their own cit­i­zens and the European Parliament to give the chem­i­cal indus­try an early Christmas present.”

“But they are not going to be able to pro­tect Monsanto for long from the over­whelm­ing pub­lic oppo­si­tion to poi­son on our food and play­grounds.”

• Science Mag


• EU Observer