The EU is moving to dilute pesticide rules after chemical companies and agricultural groups successfully lobbied Brussels about the regulatory burden being too onerous, according to documents seen by the Financial Times. The European Commission has led a push to streamline pesticide regulation as part of an effort to ease the burden on farmers and increase the bloc’s competitiveness. But parts of the simplification drive have ended up closely reflecting the demands of fertiliser and chemical companies to roll back environmental and health safeguards.
Documents obtained via freedom of information requests and shared with the FT by the NGO Corporate Europe Observatory show that parts of the Commission proposal matches requests by industry to ease restrictions on banned substances. Under existing rules, active substances that have already been approved for use in pesticides must be reassessed every 15 years. The Commission has proposed removing these follow-up checks as part of its so-called Food and Feed Safety Omnibus law, whose aim is to cut back on “unnecessary administrative costs and burdens for agrifood producers”.
Meeting logs show that the proposed change was introduced after German chemicals group Bayer and agricultural lobby Copa Cogeca had called for the “unlimited” approval of pesticides. Copa Cogeca declined to comment. Bayer said: “These are all positions that we support . . . because we believe they are important and justified, from an agro-economic and/or scientific perspective.” The draft law was put forward in December as part of the EU’s broader efforts to cut red tape in a bid to make its businesses more competitive compared with rivals in the US and China.
But critics have accused Brussels of gutting environmental standards and its green agenda in the process. The Commission also proposed exempting chemicals from bans where they are deemed necessary.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing