Resolution on the draft Commission implementing regulation renewing approval of the active substance bentazone

The European Parliament adopted by 361 votes to 289, with 28 abstentions, a resolution on the draft Commission implementing regulation renewing approval of the active substance bentazone in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market, and amending the Annex to Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 540/2011.

The resolution was tabled by the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

Background: the approval period for the active substance bentazone expired on 30 June 2017. The draft Commission implementing regulation renewing approval of the active substance bentazone provides, on the basis of a scientific evaluation conducted by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), for the authorisation of bentazone until 31 January 2032, i.e. for the longest possible period.

Members recalled that following consideration of the comments received on the RAR, it was concluded that EFSA should conduct an expert consultation in the areas of mammalian toxicology, residues, environmental fate and behaviour, and ecotoxicology and should adopt a conclusion on whether the active substance bentazone could be expected to meet the conditions laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009.

Data gaps: Members stressed that the consumer risk assessment was not finalised because the proposed residue definitions for risk assessment in plants and for enforcement in livestock were considered as provisional owing to the identified data gaps. In addition, the groundwater exposure assessment for the parent bentazone and metabolite Nmethyl-bentazone was not finalised.  

Moreover, the EFSA peer review proposed that the active substance bentazone be classified as toxic for reproduction category 2.

On the basis of these consideration, Members considered the assessment on the representative uses of active substance bentazone to be insufficient to conclude that, for at least one of the representative uses, a plant product containing the active substance bentazone may be expected not to have any harmful effect on human or animal health or on groundwater or any unacceptable influence on the environment.

Therefore, Parliament called on the Commission to give priority to requesting and assessing any relevant missing information before taking a decision on approval.

It called on the Commission to withdraw its draft implementing regulation and to submit a new draft to the committee.

The Commission and the Member States are called upon to finance research and innovation in the area of alternative sustainable and cost-efficient solutions for pest-management products with a view to ensuring a high level of protection of human and animal health and the environment.