EU
dropped pesticide laws due to US pressure over TTIP, documents reveal
US
trade officials pushed EU to shelve action on endocrine-disrupting
chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility to facilitate TTIP
free trade deal
22
May, 2016
EU
moves to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals linked to cancer and
male infertility were shelved following pressure from US trade
officials over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP) free trade deal, newly released documents show.
Draft
EU criteria could have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine
disrupting chemicals (EDCs). But these were dumped amid fears of a
trade backlash stoked by an aggressive US lobby push, access to
information documents obtained by Pesticides Action Network (PAN)
Europe show.
On
26 June 2013, a high-level delegation from the American Chambers of
Commerce (AmCham) visited EU trade officials to insist that the bloc
drop its planned criteria for identifying EDCs in favour of a new
impact study.
Minutes
of the meeting show commission officials pleading that “although
they want the TTIP to be successful, they would not like to be seen
as lowering the EU standards”.
The
TTIP is a trade deal being agreed by the EU and US to remove barriers
to commerce and promote free trade.
Responding
to the EU officials, AmCham representatives “complained about the
uselessness of creating categories and thus, lists” of prohibited
substances, the minutes show.
The
US trade representatives insisted that a risk-based approach be taken
to regulation, and “emphasised the need for an impact assessment”
instead.
On
2 July 2013, officials from the US Mission to Europe visited the EU
to reinforce the message. Later that day, the secretary-general of
the commission, Catherine Day, sent a letter to the environment
department’s director Karl Falkenberg, telling him to stand down
the draft criteria.
“We
suggest that as other DGs [directorate-generals] have done, you
consider making a joint single impact assessment to cover all the
proposals,” Day wrote. “We do not think it is necessary to
prepare a commission recommendation on the criteria to identify
endocrine disrupting substances.”
The
result was that legislation planned for 2014 was kicked back until at
least 2016, despite estimated health costs of €150bn per year in
Europe from endocrine-related illnesses such as IQ loss, obesity and
cryptorchidism – a condition affecting the genitals of baby boys.
A
month before the meeting, AmCham had warned the EU of “wide-reaching
implications” if the draft criteria were approved. The trade body
wanted an EU impact study to set looser thresholds for acceptable
exposure to endocrines, based on a substance’s potency.
“We
are worried to see that this decision, which is the source of many
scientific debates, might be taken on political grounds, without
first assessing what its impacts will be on the European market,”
the chair of AmCham’s environment committee wrote in a letter to
the commission.
These
could be “dramatic” the letter said.
In
a high-level internal note sent to the health commissioner, Tonio
Borg, shortly afterwards, his departmental director-general warned
that the EU’s endocrines policy “will have substantial impacts
for the economy, agriculture and trade”.
The
heavily redacted letter, sent a week before the EU’s plans were
scrapped continued: “The US, Canada, and Brazil [have] already
voiced concerns on the criteria which might lead to important
repercussions on trade.”
The
series of events was described as “incredible” by the the Green
MEP Bas Eickhout. “These documents offer convincing evidence that
TTIP not only presents a danger for the future lowering of European
standards, but that this is happening as we speak,” he told the
Guardian.
Earlier
this year, 64 MEP’s submitted questions to the commission about the
delay to EDC classifications, following revelations by the Guardian
about the scale of industry lobbying in the run up to their
abandonment. Sweden, the European Parliament and European Council
have brought court proceedings against the commission for the
legislative logjam.
Just
weeks before the regulations were dropped there had been a barrage of
lobbying from big European firms such as Dupont, Bayer and BASF over
EDCs. The chemical industry association Cefic warned that the
endocrines issue “could become an issue that impairs the
forthcoming EU-US trade negotiations”.
The
German chemicals giant BASF also complained that bans on pesticide
substances “will restrict the free trade with agricultural products
on the global level”.
Around
this time, the commission’s more industry-friendly agriculture
department weighed into the internal EU debate after being “informed
by representatives of the US chemical industry” about it.
A
common theme in the lobby missives was the need to set thresholds for
safe exposure to endocrines, even though a growing body of scientific
results suggests that linear threshold models – in which higher
doses create greater effects – do not apply to endocrine
disruptors.
“The
human endocrine system is regulated by hormones and the hormone
receptors are sensitive to low doses,” said Hans Muilerman, PAN
Europe’s chemicals coordinator. “In animal toxicity studies,
effects are seen from low doses [of endocrines] that disappear with
higher ones. But in the regulatory arena, lower doses are not tested
for.”
A
commission spokesperson insisted that health and environmental
concerns would be fully addressed, despite pressure from industry or
trade groups.
“The
ongoing EU impact assessment procedure is not linked in any way to
the TTIP negotiations,” the official said. “The EU will proceed
to the adoption of definitive criteria to identify endocrine
disruptors, independently from the further course of our TTIP
negotiations with the US.”
An
EU-TTIP position paper on chemicals published last May, cited
endocrine disruptors as as one of the “new and emerging scientific
issues” which the EU and the US could consider for “enhanced
regulatory cooperations” in a future TTIP deal.
“However,
given the fact that a possible future TTIP Agreement will most likely
not enter into force before the adoption of definitive EU criteria to
identify endocrine disruptors, it is clear that the EU’s ongoing
impact assessment and adoption of definitive criteria will not be
dealt with in the TTIP negotiations,” the spokesperson said.
This
article was amended on 23 May 2015. An earlier version stated that
the meeting between EU officials and representatives of the American
Chambers of Commerce occurred on 2 July 2013. It in fact happened on
26 June.
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