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Glyphosate gets EU renewal
Story Date: 11/29/2017
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Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 11/28/17
After more than two years of fierce political debate in Europe over whether glyphosate causes cancer, EU countries on Monday approved a five-year license renewal for the world's most commonly used herbicide. The vote was made possible by a last-minute U-turn from Germany, which gave the green light after months of abstaining on the issue. The EU vote, made by a food safety committee, came as a relief to farmers across Europe, who see the weedkiller as a vital tool. At the height of the debate, it often looked as if environmental campaigners would win the political battle by arguing that glyphosate was both carcinogenic and harmful to the soil.
Looking ahead to December: The vote did not put to rest the debate in Europe, but it spared Monsanto, which markets glyphosate under the Roundup label, from a damaging regulatory decision shortly before an important hearing next month in federal court in San Francisco. Judge Vince Chhabria of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is scheduled to review all of the scientific evidence in a case in which U.S. farmers allege glyphosate gave them cancer. Chhabria will determine if there is enough proof that glyphosate causes cancer to warrant bringing the case to trial.
Angry environmental groups: Monday's decision sparked an angry reaction from environmental groups, who have argued for years that policymakers should have paid closer attention to the assessment of the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer, which concluded that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen. Both the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency, by contrast, determined the chemical is safe.
Not so fast: Although glyphosate is now approved at the EU level, France reacted immediately with a declaration that it would move to ban the substance "as soon as alternatives have been found," and within three years. And Italy's Agriculture Minister, Maurizio Martina, told POLITICO the country would get rid of glyphosate within its borders by 2020. The vote flew in the face of a non-binding European Parliament resolution asking the European Commission to phase out glyphosate by 2022.
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