Commission proposals on glyphosate
Today the Member States' experts sitting at the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed are meeting and have many points on their agenda, including discussions on neonicotinoids ban and glyphosate re-approval.
On glyphosate, the European Commission proposes a ten year renewal, maintaining the ban of the coformulant POE-Tallowamine.
Their proposals would also oblige Member States to minimize use of pesticides with glyphosate in areas used by the general public or by vulnerable groups (pregnant and nursing women, the unborn, infants and children, the elderly and workers and residents subject to high pesticide exposure over the long term) such as public parks and gardens, sports and recreation grounds, school grounds and children’s playgrounds and in the close vicinity of healthcare facilities
The Commission has not prescribed further restrictions at EU level, but passes the responsibility onto Member States to pay particular attention to a number of things when evaluating or authorising pesticides at product level:
- the protection of the groundwater in vulnerable areas, in particular with respect to non-crop uses;
- the protection of operators;
- the risk to terrestrial vertebrates and non-target terrestrial plants;
- compliance of pre-harvest uses with good agricultural practices.
In addition, the Commission has not ruled out use by hobby gardeners, has proposed the minimization of use close to public parks/playground/gardens, but not a ban and will not insist on strict limitation of pre-harvest applications.
This is a first discussion, without a vote. The decision on reapproving glyphosate or not has to be taken before 15 December 2017, when the current approval expires.
