Posted November 27, 2017 – 6:07 pm
The EU countries, meeting in the Appeal Committee, voted today, 27 November, in favor of renewing the authorization for the use of the herbicide glyphosate in agriculture for five years. The balance was shifted by Germany's positive vote, which up until the eve of the vote had opted for abstention. Seventeen countries are in favor of renewing the authorization, nine are against: Italy, Belgium, Greece, France, Hungary, Cyprus, Malta, Luxembourg and Latvia. Portugal abstained. France was particularly exposed against the licence. Brune Poirson, of the general secretariat of the French Ministry of the Environment, stated during the meeting: 'Glyphosate is a product potentially at risk for health, the environment and biodiversity'.
Before and during the meeting, in front of the European Commission headquarters, environmentalists from the European Coalition 'Stop Glyphosate' staged a protest, wearing masks of the President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker and the EU Commissioner for Health, the Lithuanian Vytenis Andriukaitis, and displaying banners against glyphosate.
Commenting on the approval of the European Commission's proposal on the renewal of the glyphosate authorization for another five years, Federica Ferrario, head of the Agriculture campaign at Greenpeace Italy, said: 'Today's vote is a gift to the agro-chemical multinationals, to the detriment of health and the environment. However, Italy's vote against was good, having once again demonstrated that it gives priority to the protection of people, and not to the turnover of those who produce and trade glyphosate'.
The Appeal Committee's decision is based on a dubious risk assessment on glyphosate, which states that there is insufficient evidence that the substance is linked to cancer risk, despite the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifying it as 'probably carcinogenic' to people.
At present - say environmentalist movements - no one can say with certainty that glyphosate is safe, especially after the revelations that are continuing to emerge thanks to the so-called 'Monsanto Papers' and the 'copy-paste' scandal, relating to parts of the EFSA report on the risks of glyphosate use copied from the request for renewal of Monsanto's authorisation.
In Italy, however, the ban on the use of glyphosate remains in areas frequented by the population such as parks, gardens, sports fields and recreational areas, children's play areas, courtyards and green areas inside school complexes and healthcare facilities, but also in the countryside in pre-harvest 'for the sole purpose of optimizing the harvest or threshing'. Source:Greenplanet
