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Cingotti, whose NGO was among those leading the campaign for a European ban, added: “Continuing to export this pesticide to third countries is unacceptable, [and is] seriously damaging the credibility of the European Union’s global commitments to health and environment protection.
“The intrinsic properties of a substance are not country-dependent, and people, especially vulnerable groups such as children, deserve the same level of protection everywhere.”
Shortly after the ban was introduced, the EU slashed the maximum amount of chlorpyrifos residue that could be present on imported food to the lowest “limit of analytical determination”. In effect, this banned the import into the EU of food containing any detectable traces of the pesticide.
Semia Gharbi, a Tunisian environmental science expert and chair of the country’s Association of Environmental Education for Future Generations, told Unearthed and Public Eye that a shipment of Tunisian oranges was recently rejected and returned by the EU because it contained chlorpyrifos residues.
In 2022, Tunisia was the second-largest market, by volume, for the EU’s chlorpyrifos exports.
The North African country was the intended destination for 70 tonnes of the chlorpyrifos-based insecticide Pyrical 480, exported from Belgium by Arysta LifeScience Benelux. The Belgian company, a subsidiary of the pesticide giant UPL, plans to send the same amount again to Tunisia this year.
Gharbi said it was “imperative” that the EU practice of exporting prohibited pesticides was banned, and it fit “exactly the definition of colonialism”, which was to “legitimise the domination and economic exploitation of territories”.
This situation, besides being ethically and morally unbearable, leads to an imbalance of the market
– Zakia Khattabi, Belgian environment minister
The EC made a promise in 2020 to bring forward legislative proposals this year to ensure chemicals banned in the EU are not produced or exported. Environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius recently wrote to civil society groups assuring them that the Commission was “fully committed” to doing this and planned to “present a proposal to the European Parliament and Council in the course of 2023”.
However, the plan faces fierce opposition from the chemical lobby, and campaigners fear the proposal may arrive too late to deliver a change in the law before the next European parliamentary elections in 2024. A public consultation on the plan was supposed to begin in the first quarter of 2023, but it is not yet launched.
Belgium, the EU’s main chlorpyrifos exporter in 2022, supports an EU ban on the export of banned pesticides and is also taking steps to introduce a national ban. In December 2022, Belgian environment minister Zakia Khattabi released a draft Royal Decree that would prohibit various banned pesticide exports from Belgium.
Noting that Belgium was one of Europe’s main exporters of banned pesticides, she said at the time: “This situation, besides being ethically and morally unbearable, leads to an imbalance of the market with unfair competition from third countries who can use certain chemicals.
“There is also a boomerang effect at the expense of the European consumer, who finds imported food on his or her plate that has been treated with these harmful exported substances.”
A spokesperson for Khattabi told Unearthed and Public Eye that she intended to update the Royal Decree to include a ban on chlorpyrifos exports during the next stage of the legislative process. The decree is expected to come into force in around six months.
However, a recent investigation by Unearthed and Public Eye into a similar ban in France found that while export bans by individual EU member states have an impact, they also have limitations. In the absence of an EU-wide ban, multinational pesticide companies can adapt to national bans by shifting their export trade to subsidiaries in other member states.
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