The European Commission has been accused of supporting the “use of harmful pesticides” and has been challenged to review its decisions by an action group that operates in 60 countries worldwide.
PAN Europe claims the commission’s department, which is responsible for European Union policy on food safety and health, has failed to ensure a “high level of protection for humans, animals and the environment”.
It has launched two new legal procedures against the commission and urged it to review its decisions in relation to the “identification of unacceptable co-formulants” and “highly toxic pesticides”.
Martin Dermine, executive director at PAN Europe said decisions by the commission and member states “keep disregarding the provisions of the pesticide regulation”.
“We observe that instead of giving precedence to citizens’ health and the environment, the commission keeps favouring the interests of the agro-industry.
“Maintaining the presence of highly toxic pesticides in our environment, including on our food, goes against the signals regularly sent by citizens,” he added.
The campaign group has urged the commission to “ban toxic pesticides instead of maintaining them on the market.”
PAN Europe submitted a request for a review specifically on abamectin and a second request for a review in relation to a procedure to identify “unacceptable pesticide co-formulants”.
It said that co-formulants are chemicals added to pesticide products, other than the active substance, to increase their toxicity and effectiveness.
According to the campaign group EU pesticide regulation requires the same level of protection from co-formulants as from active substances but it claims that co-formulants are not assessed thoroughly for their toxicity.
The European Commission recently published a regulation to regulate co-formulants and ban those identified as unacceptable from products’ composition.
But PAN Europe has described the move as ” a smoke screen”.
Salomé Roynel, a policy officer at PAN Europe said:
“Scientific evidence shows that many co- formulants are toxic to bees, to aquatic life, or are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction substances.
“These are dangerous substances and they should be thoroughly risk-assessed.”
PAN Europe has repeatedly warned that health and the environment in Europe “are seriously at risk by the current pesticide use”.