Anger over weedkiller approval

Date: 09/10/2003

By Karen Carstens

GREEN groups have condemned the EU's failure to ban paraquat, a highly toxic chemical weedkiller.

The European Commission's standing committee on the food chain and animal health decided last Friday (3 October) to relicence the herbicide for use in the EU for another ten years.

"The Commission's approval of paraquat for EU-wide marketing is irresponsible," said John Hontolez, secretary general of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB).

Joanna Dober Sullivan, of Friends of the Earth Europe, echoed this view: "The Commission needs to get its priorities right. Human health and the environment should come first in EU policymaking."

They argue, along with Pesticides Action Network Europe, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers Associations (IUF), that paraquat is an "extremely dangerous substance".

"Its high toxicity and lack of antidote can lead to serious ill-health, and even death," the groups say in a joint statement.

Paraquat has already been banned in Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, and is seriously restricted in Germany and Hungary. Ron Oswald, IUF secretary-general, warned that the Commission's decision could force paraquat back onto the market in countries where it is currently banned. "It will also encourage its further use in developing countries, despite the known dangers it poses to humans and the environment," he added.

Paraquat, which was first produced for commercial purposes by ICI in 1961, is manufactured by agro-chemical giant Syngeta in Huddersfield, UK, as well as in the United States and China. It is widely used for weed control in fruit orchards and plantation crops including coffee, cocoa, coconut, bananas, olives and tea. It is also used by farms growing onions, leeks, sugar beet and asparagus, as well as being used as a dessicant for pineapples, soya beans and sunflowers.

Bernard Graciet, of Syngeta's Brussels office, rejected the green groups' complaints, saying: "The decision to reregister paraquat was based on sound science. All the EU scientific committees approved it and the decision had the strong support of DG Sanco and DG Environment."

In future, the new European Food Safety Agency will have responsibility for deciding whether to reregister the herbicide.

REACH, the European Commission's controversial chemicals' policy overhaul, is due to be unveiled on 29 October. EEB chief Hontolez said: "We urgently need a general reform of Europe's chemicals policy, which prevents serious or long-term damage to human health and the environment by forcing the substitution of unacceptable chemicals with safer alternatives."

The European Commission's Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health decided on 3 October 2003 to re-licence paraquat, the highly toxic chemical weedkiller, for a further ten years.
Green groups have condemned the decision. In future, the new European Food Safety Agency will have responsibility for deciding whether to re-register the herbicide.