On Tuesday, member state ministers on the EU Council will meet to discuss the future of glyphosate in the European Union. However, a planned vote on the matter might be delayed, after member states came out against a renewal.

The Commission must decide whether or not to grant another 15 year license for the herbicide, the most widely used such product in the world, by June when the current license expires.  

The debate over glyphosate has been made more controversial by the differing risk assessments of the product given by the World Health Organisation’s cancer research arm (IARC) in March last year, and a subsequent assessment by the Commission’s watchdog EFSA. IARC classified the herbicide as being ‘probably carcinogenic’ to humans, whereas EFSA maintains that this is unlikely to be the case.

Farm and agchem industry groups have backed EFSA’s assessment, though pro-transparency and environmental groups have claimed IARC’s opinion is more reliable, pointing to the rigorous measures in place to ensure the transparency, impartiality and ease of replication of the findings. They also point out that IARC looked at glyphosate products, which contain other substances in mixtures, whereas EFSA focused on glyphosate in isolation. Last week, experts, including representatives of the two bodies, spoke at an event in the European Parliament, to which Council members were invited in light of this week’s Council meeting.

At the Parliamentary event, Commission spokesperson Nathalie Chaze suggested that the Commission would begin looking at formulations of products, and not just active ingredients, and will begin drawing up a list of pesticide adjuvants to examine with member states. She acknowledged that “This is not something we have done a lot before” and has more in common with IARC’s approach.

So far, however, EU governments have only agreed to restrict the use of glyphosate in products that also contain polyethoxylated (POE)-tallowamine. These products are already banned in Germany.

On Friday, environment minister Segolene Royale said France would vote against the relicensing of glyphosate; the French government has moved to restrict sales of products containing the herbicide since IARC published its findings last year. On Saturday, the governments of Sweden and the Netherlands said they do not support EFSA’s conclusions on glyphosate, and declared their intention to vote against the Commission’s proposed renewal if Tuesday’s vote is not postponed.

Environment ministers from the states cited public concerns over transparency at EFSA and potential health impacts from glyphosate use. The governments of Germany and Italy had kept their voting intentions quiet in the run-up to the Council meetings on Monday and Tuesday.

Environmentalists had expected the Council to go along with the Commission’s proposal for a new 15 year lease on Tuesday, though several groups in the European Parliament have stated their opposition to the proposals. The Commission has proposed requesting that glyphosate manufacturers produce scientific evidence, by 1 August 2016, proving that glyphosate does not interfere with the human hormone system (endocrine disruption). Member states are expected to back this demand, but a decision on the herbicide’s EU license is still likely to have been made by August.

Commenting ahead of the announcements from the three member states, Greenpeace EU food policy director Franziska Achterberg believed member states’ ministers were prepared to “Brush aside glyphosate herbicide safety concerns”. Franziska said, “EU governments seem more concerned about maintaining today’s destructive agricultural practices than protecting the health of people and the environment. For a long time, glyphosate was thought to be safe. Now more and more scientific evidence tells us that it's a serious threat to our health and the environment. Ignoring this evidence for another 15 years will cost us dearly. Europe needs an exit strategy from chemical pesticides and a move towards ecological farming.”