EU: call for Special Committee on authorisation process of pesticides

At yesterday's Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament, the Greens/EFA group will call for the establishment of a special committee to investigate the handling of the assessment process for pesticides.

"The glyphosate saga has raised serious questions about the process for authorising pesticides in the EU. The special committee must explore why scientific studies demonstrating that glyphosate is dangerous have been ignored. The committee must also determine how to improve authorisation processes so that they are made transparent and objective. This is urgently needed to ensure that decisions in the EU are determined by public and not private interests", comments Ska Keller, co-president of the Greens/EFA group.

Further Philippe Lamberts, co-president of the Greens/EFA group, says: "Without the Monsanto Papers and the hard campaigning of citizens and environmentalists, glyphosate would no doubt have been re-authorized for 15 years instead of five. To make sure there is full transparency, we want to see the establishment of a special committee to look into how the dangers of pesticides are assessed. When it comes to glyphosate in particular, we want to look at the role of the German agency Bfr (German National Institution for Risk Assessment) and the European agencies, EFSA (European Food Security Agency) and ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) ."

The mandate resulting from the negotiations between the Greens/EFA, S&D (Socialists & Democrats) and GUE/NGL (Green/ Nordic Green Left) groups is attached.