Glyphosate's EU approval to remain until at least July 2023
The European Food Safety Authority will assess all possible risks that exposure to glyphosate might pose to humans, animals and the environment. Picture: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images
Glyphosate, the most widely-used weedkiller in the world, is likely to remain available for use in the EU until at least July 2023.
Estimated to account for one-third of the total herbicide volume sold in Europe in recent years, glyphosate has been used as the active ingredient in Monsanto-Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller since 1971. The chemical is also sold under various other trademarks.
However, EU approval for use of glyphosate was set to expire in December 2022.
In late 2019, a renewal process was launched to decide whether the approval should be prolonged.
Now, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have announced a revised timeline for the remaining steps in the re-evaluation process.
This will take longer than previously expected as consultations carried out by EFSA and ECHA on the draft assessments of glyphosate attracted an unprecedented number of comments, adding a significant amount of information to a dossier that already contained far more scientific data than are usually available for such assessments.
The information will be considered by the Assessment Group on Glyphosate (AGG), which is composed of four EU member states — France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden.
However, EFSA and ECHA’s revised timeline envisages a delay until July 2023 before conclusions of EFSA’s peer review are expected to be made available.
The documents will be shared with the European Commission, member states, and the Glyphosate Renewal Group (GRG) — which is the name of the plant protection industry grouping which submitted an application in 2019 for the renewal of glyphosate's approval.
EFSA received 368 responses to its public consultation and about 2,400 comments from member state experts and the GRG. These contributions have resulted in a file of about 3,000 pages.
In its conclusions, EFSA will assess all possible risks that exposure to glyphosate might pose to humans, animals and the environment.
In recent years there has been much debate around whether glyphosate is carcinogenic, with thousands of lawsuits claiming the product caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system.
But the next step is likely to be the commission proposing a temporary extension of the EU approval for use of glyphosate, to cover the six months until the EFSA conclusions, in the summer of 2023.
Regardless of the eventual EFSA conclusions on glyphosate, it will come under scrutiny, along with other pesticides, during the ongoing implementation of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy, which aims to reduce the overall use and risk of chemical pesticides by 50% and the use of more hazardous pesticides by 50%, by 2030.
Some European countries have already taken steps to withdraw the sale of glyphosate.
Last year, the German cabinet passed legislation to ban glyphosate by 2024. After two unsuccessful attempts within two years to ban glyphosate, the Austrian parliament also agreed to a "partial ban" — affecting the most sensitive areas and private use.
