EU to reauthorize glyphosate for ten more years despite lack of conclusive vote

17 Nov 2023 --- The European Commission (EC) failed to secure the votes of a qualified majority from member states during yesterday’s Appeal Committee on the reauthorization of glyphosate use in the bloc. The inconclusive vote means that the EC now has full authority to make decisions on the matter.

“The EC confirms that no qualified majority was reached, supporting or rejecting its proposal, first at the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed in a vote held on October 16 and again at the Appeal Committee held on November 16,” Stefan de Keersmaecker, EC coordinating spokesperson for the European Green Deal and spokesperson for health and food safety, tells Nutrition Insight.

“The EC has the legal obligation to take a decision on the renewal in the absence of a qualified majority at the Appeal Committee. Taking into account the fact that the current approval of glyphosate expires on 15 December 2023, the EC will now proceed to renew the approval of glyphosate in the coming weeks,” he adds. 

Experts and scientists have expressed concerns about the proposal, citing fears that the use of glyphosate impairs the nutrient content of crops, along with various other concerns related to public health and environmental degradation.

The Glyphosate Renewal Group (GRG), a consortium of companies that requested the EC to reauthorize the chemical in 2019, responded to concerns by pointing to a clearance granted following an investigation by the EU Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). The EC will now proceed to renew the approval of glyphosate in the coming weeks.

Moving toward reauthorization
In his comment to us, Keersmaecker assures: “The protection of human health and the environment are the very essence of the EU food safety rules. Decisions in this area are always based on robust science and evidence. That is why the Commission is fully committed to ensuring that the approval of active substances in plant protection products such as glyphosate is based on the most recent scientific evidence and in strict compliance with EU law.”

“It is on the basis of ECHA’s and EFSA’s comprehensive assessments, which demonstrate that the impact of glyphosate on health does not raise any critical concerns, the EC proposed to the member states to renew the approval of glyphosate subject to a number of conditions and restrictions.”

“The Commission’s decision to press ahead on auto-pilot and ignore the precautionary principle enshrined in EU law is deeply disappointing,” Eoin Dubsky, campaigner at the environmental group Ekō, tells us. 

“The steps now taken by the EC are fully in line with the legal framework of the EU. Although there is no qualifying majority, in the first vote, for example, the majority of member states (18 out of 27) representing more than 55% of the population voted in favor of renewal,” a GRG spokesperson says. 

Addressing safety concerns
Keersmaecker further states that no critical areas of concern regarding the impact of glyphosate on the health of humans, animals and the environment, which did not identify that would prevent a renewal of approval, have been found. 

Responding to a letter submitted on Tuesday (November 14) by 291 scientists, including 104 professors, from Belgium and the Netherlands, urging their ministers to take the independent science on glyphosate into consideration, Keersmaecker says that “the Assessment Group on Glyphosate (AGG) composed of France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden, and EFSA identified and assessed the relevant public literature. ”

“In the specific case of glyphosate, the applicants screened more than 16,000 published studies, of which about 2,000 were considered as potentially relevant and further assessed for their relevance, resulting in about 780 relevant publications after full-text screening.” 

“During the public consultation, 300 additional studies were brought to the attention of the AGG and EFSA. Subsequently, the GRG was requested to complement the available evidence. Therefore, all submitted studies from public literature were assessed based on their relevance and reliability for the risk assessment procedure.”

“The pesticide assessment process is not fit for purpose, that’s one thing. But furthermore, I’m afraid this Commission appears to be overwhelmed or unequipped to confront big business and the agrochemical industry in particular,” campaigner Dubsky argues. “Only a tiny minority of Europeans polled recently said that they support glyphosate’s license renewal. But evidently, this Commission is unconcerned about that.”

The GRG spokesperson responds, “Given that the European approval system is one of the most independent and rigorous in the world, there is no reason to believe that the conclusions of both EFSA and ECHA cannot be trusted or are not in line with regulatory standards. As mentioned above, glyphosate has been assessed twice in the EU in the last five years.”The EC states that there are no critical areas of concern on the health of humans, animals and the environment.

Continued research
The EC’s decision to reauthorize glyphosate for ten years further stands out because usually, the renewal of approval of active chemicals is for 15 years. In a recent press release, the EC explains that this is the case because “research on glyphosate is intensifying. New insights on the properties of glyphosate relevant for the protection of human health and environment can be expected.” 

Nonetheless, Keersmaecker tells us that “about 200 newly available publications on glyphosate brought to EFSA’s attention after the public consultation phase until the time point of drafting the EFSA Conclusion were screened by EFSA for their potential impact on the risk assessment to make sure that no relevant information was missed.”

“In the interests of transparency, this list of additional publications has also been made publicly available as part of the background documentation to the Conclusion. ECHA also considered the relevant scientific literature when carrying out its assessment. Volume one of the Renewal Assessment Report, as made available by EFSA, provides a detailed explanation of how the literature search was performed and how literature was taken into account.” 

Leading up to the October 13 vote, representatives of the GRG and non-governmental organizations opposing the use of glyphosate debated the scientific evidence on the matter and presented their evidence.

By Milana Nikolova