3 July 2017 — SumOfUs

A staggering 1.3 million Europeans signed the Stop Glyphosate European Citizens Initiative (ECI). Together we’ve told the European Commission to ban Monsanto’s favourite pesticide, to reform the EU’s pesticide approval procedure, and to set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use. We’ve done it — and only just in time!

The last signatures came in on Friday night, exactly one year after the day when glyphosate’s 15-year license for use in the EU expired. Since then the agrochemical giants who produce the cancer-causing chemical have grown even larger, combining and swallowing up each other like something out of a horror film. The Dow Chemical Company is merging with DuPont, ChemChina is tying the knot with Syngenta, and Bayer and Monsanto asked the European Commission only days ago to bless their marriage from hell.

But we are more than a million Davids, and together we can beat these Goliaths!

The European Commission could only give glyphosate an 18-months pass last year. They couldn’t muster the government votes for another full license, after the World Health Organization’s cancer research experts classified glyphosate as a probable cause of cancer to humans. But the Commission is talking again about a 10 or 15-year license.

Our Stop Glyphosate initiative could not be better timed. The European Commission is now legally required to respond to our demands and consider them in its upcoming decisions. You helped make that happen!

The Commission is expected to issue a formal proposal ahead of a discussion with EU government representatives as early as the 19th of July. EU governments will be invited to vote on this proposal after the summer. Based on the outcome, the Commission will take a final decision before the end of the year when the current EU glyphosate licence runs out.

Will you chip in to fund our ongoing campaign to ban glyphosate, and save our food system from the agrochemical giants?

The Stop Glyphosate ECI didn’t just get signed. It was organized and the work was shared, and couldn’t have happened without months of effort of many tens of thousands of members of NGOs and campaigning groups across Europe who collected signatures in their communities online and in real life, and chipped in to fund vital campaign resources.

German ECI signatures delivered today to authorities by WeMove.EU

Thanks for all that you do,

Nabil, Eoin and the team at SumOfUs