Published on Wednesday 2nd March by Independent Science News: Many European Pesticide Approvals Are “unlawful” Says EU Ombudsman was written by Jonathan Latham, PhD.
Synopsis: Currently, 88 pesticides are approved in Europe having incomplete data sets on health and safety. Under a procedure called the Confirmatory Data Procedure (CDP) pesticides can legally be approved even where applications are incomplete. However, many of these ‘temporary’ registrations occurred over ten years ago and still have not been finalized. Therefore, according to a complaint brought by Pesticides Action Network of Europe the EU is using the much weaker CDP registration process as a loophole and not in the manner intended. This is leading to high risks to health and the environment. The complaint was upheld on this and other points by the EU Ombudsman who ruled that using the CDP as a default was illegal on narrow grounds but also because it appeared to violate the precautionary principle which is the legal standard in the EU.
Like the EU, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also been approving pesticides under less stringent conditional registration standards and then failing to enforce full registration. US EPA has been heavily criticised for this, including in a 2013 NRDC report: Superficial Safeguards: Most Pesticides Are Approved by Flawed EPA Process.
To read the full article go to: http://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/many-european-pesticide-approvals-are-unlawful-says-eu-ombudsman/
