Despite repeated warnings from scientists, public health experts, and civil society organisations, EU Member States have chosen today to weaken safeguards against pesticides. Just earlier this month, over 500 scientists and doctors challenged the Omnibus proposal, warning against weakening vital rules and asking to pause it until a proper impact assessment is conducted.
Clara Bourgin, food, farming and nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe commented:
“National governments are betraying the precautionary principle by consenting to gut the very safeguards meant to protect our health. The Commission’s proposal is so damaging to our protections from pesticides that a few last-minute crumbs from the Council will be dressed up as wins. They’re not. This is still a disaster for people’s health and for nature.”
The adopted text now:
- Restricts unlimited approval to low-risk substances. Approval periods for other substances would increase to 15 years for first approvals and 25 years for renewals (compared to the current respective 10 and 15 years)
- Further restricts the use of science by mandating that Member States rely solely on pre-approved guidance documents, effectively forcing reliance on outdated data rather than current knowledge.
- Allows Member States within the same zone to grant identical emergency authorisations.
- Maintains other dangerous proposals from the EU Commission, including the extension of grace periods up to three years (duration for which a banned pesticides can still be used).
The proposal will now be handed over to Members of the European Parliament. The current Parliament’s draft report led by right-wing and far-right groups, goes even further in dismantling nature and people’s protections. Friends of the Earth Europe calls on parliamentarians who care about the public interest to stop this rollback.
Background notes
- The industry complains about the cost of approving pesticides but societal costs of pesticide use far outweigh those. A study by BASIC estimated that, in Europe alone, the costs directly attributable to pesticides and borne by society reached €2.3 billion in 2017. At the global level, a recent report by Systemiq estimates that pesticides and other toxic chemicals cause US $3 trillion in preventable health and environmental costs every year, including US $1.4–2.2 trillion in healthcare expenditure and US $640 billion in ecological damage.
- On the impacts of pesticides on people’s health
- Friends of the Earth Europe and Pesticide Action Network Europe’s factsheet
- The wide use of pesticides has been linked to the doubling of Parkinson’s cases across the globe over the past 20 years. It is now one of the fastest-growing neurological disorders in the world.
- Studies show that childhood cancer rates have been rising by about 1% to over 1.5% each year over the past few decades (see here and here). A 2021 report by INSERM suggests a link between exposure to pesticides and blood cancers in children, especially when mothers are professionally exposed to pesticides during pregnancy or father are exposed before conception.
