Germany swings EU vote in favour of weed-killer glyphosate
BRUSSELS: Germany defeated its key EU ally France in a very tight vote on Monday to clear the use of weed-killer glyphosate for the next five years after a heated debate over whether it causes cancer.
After months of indecisive votes among the 28 member states in Brussels, Germany, whose Chancellor Angela Merkel has yet to form a new coalition after a September election, came off the fence after abstaining in previous meetings. It said it backed a European Commission proposal against the wishes of France.
The Commission, the European Union’s executive, said in a statement that 18 countries had backed its proposal to renew the chemical’s licence. Nine countries were against and one abstained, giving a “positive opinion” by the narrowest possible margin under rules requiring more than a simple majority.
The extension was opposed by Germany’s centre-left Social Democrats ( SPD), with which Merkel is expected to launch exploratory talks this week on renewing their “grand coalition” after plans for an alliance with two other parties failed.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who was elected in May on a platform of pursuing deeper EU integration alongside Germany, had wanted a shorter extension and a rapid phasing out of glyphosate, which is a mainstay of farming across the continent.
After the vote, he said he would take all necessary measures to ban the product, originally developed by Monsanto, as soon as an alternative is available and at the latest within three years. Monsanto declined to comment.
Europe has been wrestling for the past two years over what to do with the chemical, a key ingredient in Monsanto’s topselling Roundup, whose licence was set to expire on Dec 15.
The chemical has been used by farmers for more than 40 years, but its safety was cast into doubt when a World Health Organisation agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC), concluded in 2015 it probably causes cancer.
The European Union agreed to roll over the licence for 18 months pending the results of a study by the European Chemicals Agency, which said in March this year that there was no evidence linking glyphosate to cancer in humans.
Protest groups, however, seized on the IARC report, questioned the science in other studies and complained about the influence of big business.