Can Glyphosate Now Be Banned or Not?
With the issue of the notification statement from the European Commission, the discussion about the Glyphosate ban is starting again. According to the Agricultural Ministry it is clear that the ban is not legally compliant. However, for GLOBAL2000 a ban is still possible.
The Ministry of Agriculture and environmentalists are interpreting the EU statement to the Glyphosate ban differently. / Picture: © Flickr / Lutz Blohm (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Last summer, the Austrian government implemented an official ban of the plant protection product Glyphosate which was intended to come into effect in January 2020. However, due to a formal mistake the chancellor Bierlein stopped the implementation of the ban.
The draft of the law should have been sent for verification to the European commission in advance which was not done. It was then sent on May 19, 2020 and now the notification statement from the European commission is available.
In the statement, the commission declares that studies do not show any concrete risk from Glyphosate for human health and that the argumentation of the precautionary principle were already considered before the launch. Also, single inputs from Austria concerning this topic are not permitted in the European law.
According to Agriculture Minister Köstinger and the Industry Group Plant Protection, it is clear that the EU announced this ban as not legally complaint which would allow the further use of Glyphosate.
However, the environmental protection organization GLOBAL2000 cheer the statement for victory as they say that the EU abandoned a "detailed statement".
Therefore, it is now comparable with the French precedent of the Neonicotinoid ban where the European commission did not issue a "detailed statement" too. After an intervention from Hungary which lead to a 3-month standstill the French government still implemented this ban.
The Czech Republic issued now a "detailed statement" against the Glyphosate ban which leads to a 3-months standstill period in Austria. Now it is up to the Austrian parliament if they want to go the same way as France and implement the ban or allow a further usage.