The European mediator pinned the European Commission on a procedure used to authorize pesticides without information on their toxicity.
The marketing authorization of pesticides by the Directorate of Health (DG Health) of the European Commission is carried out according to illegal procedures. This is the clear finding of the mediator of the European Union, who is publishing this Monday explosive conclusions.
Incomplete files
The European mediator was approached in 2012 by the NGO network PAN Europe, which was alarmed by the use of the “confirmation data procedure” in the authorization of pesticides in Brussels.
This procedure allows pesticides to be approved, even in the absence of data relating to their safety at the time of examination of the dossier by the Member States.
With this procedure, “pesticides could be approved with serious data gaps and high risks, allowing industry to submit additional information only later in the future,” said in a Generations statement. Futures, French branch of PAN Europe.
Systematic recourse
After investigating this practice, the European Ombudsman delivers a concise decision. While the use of CDP (confirmatory data procedure) should be exceptional, the Commission has ruled several times on the approval of pesticides, “when it lacked information to be able to take informed decisions on the non-toxicity of the approved substance”, can we read.
Worse: in several approval files, the EFSA (the Food Safety Authority) – little reputed to be an ayatollah of the precautionary principle – calculated the presence of a high risk, identified in the scientific literature. Despite this, DG Health would have approved pesticides through this procedure. It is “difficult to understand how the Commission could legitimately decide that these substances have no harmful effects”, wonders the mediator.
Such a practice suggests systematic recourse to this procedure, which would directly infringe European law. For the mediator, this is at best a case of “maladministration”, at worst a ploy of dubious honesty.
A “worrying” health risk
In practice, the risks are the same for populations exposed to these pesticides, about which little is known in the end. The mediator is alarmed at the possible consequences of these authorizations on “the health of humans, animals and the environment”, which could prove to be “particularly worrying”.
The report points to other shortcomings in compliance with the conditions for placing pesticides on the market, such as a lack of environmental protection requirements and an assessment of the protective measures deployed.
The mediator concludes that the Commission can sometimes prove to be “too light in its practices” and that it “could not sufficiently take into account the precautionary principle”. An elegant formula that doesn’t hide the preoccupied tone of its conclusions. The mediator calls for the end of this practice and the submission of a report from the Commission within two years, to prove the effectiveness of the changes implemented.
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