PAN Europe and Nature&Progrès Belgium took legal action against the systematic authorisation of two cypermethrin-based insecticides, a substance linked to health and environmental damages, the NGOs argued.
The NGOs jointly asked the Belgian Council of State to immediately suspend the authorisation of two cypermethrin-based insecticides: Sherpa 100 EW et Aphicar 100 EW.
According to the NGOs, despite the availability of alternatives, Belgian authorities systematically expose citizens, and the environment to toxic substances, and their authorisations of these pesticides do not follow the relevant EU legislation.
Cypermethrin is an insecticide belonging to the pyrethroid family widely used in agriculture to fight various species such as caterpillars, flies or weevils.
The substance was first approved at the EU level in 2005 for a period of 10 years. Following delays in its re-evaluation process, its validity period has been extended five times, until renewal for seven years in 2021 due to pressure from several member states, as a substance for which alternatives must be considered.
In September, PAN Europe and the NGO Sum Of Us had submitted a formal complaint to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) claiming that the Commission, by re-approving the substance, did not follow the conclusions of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to ban cypermethrin.
PAN has listed Cypermethrin as one of the 12 most toxic substances, for which the NGO calls for an immediate ban.
“Cypermethrin is a substance known to be particularly toxic to bees and aquatic species and highly suspected of endocrine disruption in humans,” Martin Dermine, executive director of PAN Europe, said in a press release.
In Belgium, cypermethrin is used on a wide range of cereals like wheat, barley, oats or rye, as well as on vegetables such as cabbages and potatoes.
In the challenged authorisations, the Belgian authorities allegedly failed to carry out a comparative assessment of the product containing cypermethrin and the chemical and non-chemical alternatives to its use.
Alternatives for cypermethrin include crop rotation to prevent accumulation of the insects in the soil, avoiding fields previously used as meadows, extensive soil cultivation to expose the insects to the sun and monitoring the soil (feromone traps), PAN Europe explains.
“The Belgian procedure is designed to prevent any form of substitution of these most toxic pesticides by safer alternatives. We ask the Council of State to sanction this practice contrary to the EU regulation on pesticides and therefore exposes citizens and the environment to this particularly toxic substance without legal ground,” Salomé Roynel, Campaigner at PAN Europe, said.
According to a PAN report published in May, Belgium was the member state in which residues of the most toxic pesticides were most frequently found.
(Anne-Sophie Gayet | EURACTIV.com)
Source: euractiv.com
