This page is a part of the corpus (Annexe 1) used to write Stéphane Foucart and neonicotinoids.
Here, I relate what the journalist said in his article “La médiatrice de l’Union européenne met en cause le processus d’autorisation des pesticides”. All quotes, originally in French, were translated by me.
The European mediator, Emily O’Reilly, was seized by the NGO PAN-Europe on the subject of the authorization procedures (MA) of pesticides. She sent a letter on June 22 to the President of the European Commission, which S. Foucart comments on in this article.
Marketing Authorizations are issued after a risk assessment by EFSA, which is based on data provided by the company seeking approval. If the data is incomplete, the Commission can still grant MA using a ‘confirmatory data request’ procedure. The product is approved, but the company will have to provide additional information at a later date. PAN-Europe criticizes the abusive use of this procedure:
“since 2015, the Commission has used it in half of the authorizations issued. The mediator studied 5 cases of such procedures. In the majority, EFSA would not be consulted. In addition, the commission would not give reasons for its decisions to issue these authorizations. Finally, for “pesticides approved under this procedure since 2015,” confirmatory data “on how they respond to water treatment has still not been provided. “