Thursday

30th Nov 2023

Industry delayed EU regulation of toxic chemicals

  • EDCs used in baby bottles have been banned (Photo: Valentina Pop)

A report out on Wednesday (20 May) shows how industry lobbied EU institutions to kill regulation on possible toxic chemicals used in everyday products.

Drafted by Brussels-based Corporate Europe Observatory and by French journalist Stephane Horel, it shows how big chemical trade associations and firms managed to prevent restrictions from being imposed on endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs).

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

EDCs, which can interfere with hormonal systems, are often found in pesticides, plastics, cosmetics, computers, and construction materials.

The EU banned an EDC known as bisphenol A (BPA) from being used in baby bottles in 2011 because of the risks.

Nina Holland, CEO campaigner and co-author of the report, said they obtained hundreds of documents released by the European Commission following freedom of information requests.

“[It] show unambiguously how science is being manipulated to defend vested interests, manufacture doubt and delay a pioneering regulation", she said.

The affair kicked off in 2009 when the DG Environment at the European Commission launched an independent study to probe EDC toxicology on humans.

The resulting report, which took a critical view on EDCs, prompted the DG to start laying the groundwork for future EU-wide rules.

The conclusions of the report and the DG’s moves provoked attacks in 2012 from the US-based chemical corporations, British and German authorities, and from inside the commission itself.

The director-general of DG Sanco, the commission's health and safety department, headed at the time by Paola Testori Coggi, is said to have sidelined DG Environment and initiated another study by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) which came out with different conclusions.

One EFSA scientist, in an email, describes his embarrassment over the new report on EDCs because it contradicted another report by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“It is almost embarrassing to compare our current draft report with the WHO-UNEP report. The issues the WHO-UNEP report highlight and takes out as being specific for [endocrine disruptors], we in our report are trying to down-play or even avoid,” notes the email.

The WHO-UNEP report, published in early 2013, concluded that EDCs were a “global threat that needs to be resolved”.

For its part, the European Parliament had by then issued its own report, which backed the conclusions originally obtained by DG Environment.

The industry, including chemical giant Bayer, initiated delay tactics in late 2013 by requesting the European Commission to conduct a 12-month impact assessment.

They lobbied DG Sanco, Enterprise and Trade, and also the commission’s secretary general.

Next they targeted the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

On the US side, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), CropLife America (CLA), the American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels, lobbied against imposing any further regulatory restrictions on the chemicals in TTIP.

A German toxicologist along with around 50 scientists also opposed the DG Environment survey on EDCs in a letter written to the commission’s chief scientific adviser Anne Glover in June 2013.

Around 30 of the signatories had ties to the industry. Three of them – also with industry ties - worked at EFSA.

A rebuttal published in Endocrine Society journal and signed by over 100 scientists described the German letter as “a profound disservice” to public health.

But around a month after receiving the German letter, Catherine Day, the EU commission's secretary general, decided an impact assessment study was needed.

“With this decision to launch an impact assessment, the secretary general had single-handedly thrown a monkey wrench in DG Environment’s work on EDCs,” notes the CEO paper.

The report notes that, as a result, the scientific criteria to define EDCs will not be ready before 2017.

“That is four years after the legal deadline set by the [EU] parliament.”

The European Crop Protection Association, which represents the pesticides industry, in a statement said it takes the issue of endocrine disruption seriously and found CEO's report one-side and unbalanced.

"Our industry has repeatedly stated that it has no interest in delaying this process. We are eager to move quickly beyond the current interim criteria in place towards a more predictable regulatory process," it said.

EU adopts hormone disruptor norms

A European Commission proposal on how to define endocrine disruptors was voted through on Tuesday, after a year of blockage. A French turn-around allowed the decision.

Opinion

'Pay or okay?' — Facebook & Instagram vs the EU

Since last week, Mark Zuckerberg's Meta corporation is forcing its European users to either accept their intrusive privacy practices — or pay €156 per year to access Facebook and Instagram without tracking advertising.

Column

How centre-right conservatives capitulate to the far-right

Many conservatives in Europe seem to have forgotten the lesson of 1930s Germany. They sacrifice their principles on the altar of the polls and all-too-often try to overtake rightwing radicals on their own pet subjects like security or migration.

Latest News

  1. 'Pay or okay?' — Facebook & Instagram vs the EU
  2. EU offers Turkey upgrade, as Sweden nears Nato entry
  3. Russia loses seat on board of chemical weapons watchdog
  4. Finland's closure of Russia border likely violates asylum law
  5. The EU's 'no added sugars' fruit-juice label sleight-of-hand
  6. EU belittles Russia's Lavrov on way to Skopje talks
  7. Member states stall on EU ban on forced-labour products
  8. EU calls for increased fuel supplies into Gaza

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  3. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  4. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?
  5. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  6. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  3. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  4. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersGlobal interest in the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations – here are the speakers for the launch
  6. Nordic Council of Ministers20 June: Launch of the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us