EU braces for pesticides clampdown[de] 

"We want to ensure that citizens today and in the future do not have their health endangered by the use of pesticides, and can benefit from a safe, clean and rich environment," said EU environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas as he unveiled the strategy on 12 July.

Pesticides are considered essential to protect crops from insects, rodents and fungi. But they can also accumulate in the environment and cause risks to human health when they end up in drinking water. Potential health risks include cancers, genetic disturbances and damage to the immune system.

A new regulation has been tabled to replace existing rules concerning the approval of pesticides in the EU, a directive which date back to 1991. The new regulation proposes:

• Tightening up the environmental and health criteria for approving active substances before they are allowed at EU level. Approved substances would appear in a positive list while the others would be banned by default. The list would be open for revision at any moment, using a fast-track 'comitology' procedure.
• Bringing down the time limit to approve new substances from 4-6 years to two years. The role of the European Food Safety Agency in the authorisation process is strengthened
• Encouraging the replacement of dangerous substances by placing them on a "candidate list" for substitution. Assessments as to whether suitable alternatives exist would be done at member state level
• Compulsory mutual recognition of authorised products within a specified geographical zone (except for products using substances on the candidate list)
• The draft regulation also introduces new rules concerning data protection, that chemical manufacturers consider crucial to safeguard their intellectual property rights. Under the proposal, authorisations of active substances will no longer have to be renewed every 10 years but only once, after an initial 10 year period. The protection would fall after this period to allow further health and safety assessments

At the moment, active substances are approved at EU level, while the pesticides containing the substances are authorised at member state level. Under the new Commission proposal, a product which has received approval in one member state would be automatically approved in others within a determined geographical zone. 

Three zones have been defined, on the basis of climatic factors and ecological conditions - North, Central and South. However, member states would still be allowed to adopt specific risk mitigation measures if they wished to.

Farmers would be required to keep a record of pesticides use and make them available on request of the drinking water providers. A new regulation will be tabled at a later stage to deal with statistical aspects of pesticide use.

In addition, as part of the thematic strategy on the sustainable use of pesticides, the Commission proposes:

• Banning aerial spraying except for strictly defined cases
• National action plans on the safer handling of pesticides
• Training for professional users
• Certification and control of equipment
• Protection of the aquatic environment

The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA), which represents pesticide manufacturers, expressed disappointment at the proposed new authorisation rules. "The proposal introduces unnecessary new hurdles for the authorisation of pesticides" and runs contrary to the Commission's growth and jobs agenda by stifling innovation, said ECPA Director General Dr Friedhelm Schmider.

In particular, ECPA condemns the removal of the current system whereby national authorities can grant provisional authorisations before substances are approved at EU level. This, it says, will increase time to market. "We appreciate the efforts being made to improve the decision making procedures, but we believe that it is unrealistic to expect a decision that currently takes 4-6 years to be taken in two years in future," said Schmider.

ECPA also strongly rejects "hazard based cut-off criteria" for the safety assessment of substances as it believes it is "based purely on political perception". Regulatory Affairs Director Euros Jones warned such an approach "will lead to the revocation of dozens of substances and consequently hundreds of safe uses". ECPA favours instead a risk-based approach where products are assessed in a more complete manner, combining hazard with exposure and use.

The Commission's pesticides strategy also came under fire from environmental and health groups who expressed doubts about the strategy's capacity to phase-out the most harmful products.

"The Commission's strategy is a visionless patchwork. It lacks enforceable targets or market-based instruments, like a pesticides tax, to achieve its ends", said John Hontelez, Secretary General of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a federation of environmental NGOs. Hontelez said a genuinely sustainable use of pesticides "has to mean progressively reducing their use [and] making farmers less dependent on powerful chemicals producers. The worst pesticides, like those widely polluting our water […] should be banned immediately."

The group also criticised what it says are "flawed zonal authorisations" because they "encourage companies to go 'country-shopping' to get authorisation and access to big markets" and "undermine governments' powers to reject pesticides in their national market."