A court in Luxembourg has lifted the national ban on the active substance glyphosate. The Grand Duchy was the first EU member state to ban the active substance in January 2021. As the Ministry of Agriculture announced, the Administrative Court has now declared the ban null and void. In a statement, the court said the use of glyphosate "does not pose an unacceptable risk to human or animal health, or even to the environment due to its ecological or agricultural characteristics." As long as the active substance is authorised throughout the EU, there is no objective reason for a national special regulation.

Anne Kokenbrink

Editor in Business

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The chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer, which itself produces glyphosate, had sued the Grand Duchy for the ban. The reason: The ban violates EU law. The Administrative Court ruled in favour of the Bayer Group in the first instance, whereupon the state appealed. Now the Administrative Court confirmed the first-instance judgment.

EU-wide approved until December

"The repeal has the consequence that the authorisations for the plant protection products concerned will be reinstated from the date of delivery of the judgment," said the Luxembourg Ministry of Agriculture. Agriculture Minister Claude Haagen merely stated that they had "taken note of the court's decision". After analyzing the ruling, the government will decide on further steps.

EU-wide glyphosate is still approved until 15 December 2023. What happens next is an open question. Actually, it should be over at the end of 2022, but after a long back and forth between the Commission and EU member states, the Commission had extended the approval by one year, citing the current risk assessment. A final re-evaluation of the active substance is to be presented by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in July.

Environmental associations take action against approvals

In Germany, glyphosate is to be taken off the market by the end of 2023 according to the coalition agreement. Environmental groups have long criticized pesticides, especially glyphosate. Now Deutsche Umwelthilfe and Foodwatch want to take legal action against approvals for the first time. They have submitted formal objections to the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety against the approvals of several funds, informed the environmental aid. If these are dismissed, a lawsuit will follow.

Glyphosate has been repeatedly criticized for years. The herbicide is suspected of causing cancer. Critics of the drug refer to an assessment of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which classifies glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic". Meanwhile, the European Chemicals Agency, among others, clarified in the latest risk assessment at the end of May 2022 that this classification of glyphosate was "not justified".