Giving voice to public concerns

The value of having an active voice in European policy is recognised especially on issues which directly affect health and the environment. Yet the process by which pesticides are authorised in the European Union is notorious for its lack of transparency and public participation. Ute Meyer reports on PAN Europe proposals to change the system.

‘Public participation’ means involving interest groups that represent important public or societal concerns in political processes, including the formation of opinions and decision-making. Authorities in a modern democracy should encourage and welcome public interest groups and set up structures that make effective participation possible. Involving them brings new perspectives and ‘real world’ views into policy processes and enables direct feedback during the decision-making period, which can avoid conflicts later on. Public participation brings a specific ‘added value’ into political processes that cannot be acquired by governmental representatives or other stakeholders. Clearly, participation means much more than a few public hearings or the mere presence of public interest group representatives in meetings.
    Effective public participation can only take place if a number of basic preconditions are met. Transparency is one such fundamental precondition. This concerns decision-making processes, the implementation of decisions made, their underlying assumptions, criteria and the reasons for the choices made. Transparent processes allow easy access to the relevant information, with easy-to-find and well-structured information as a minimum, as well as a willingness to communicate. Publication of information after decisions are taken does not constitute transparency even if full documentation of the decision-making is available.
    Another precondition is the question of balance among different interest groups and equal opportunities for successful participation. In many decision processes where specific technical competence and large financial resources are needed to follow the procedures, industry makes up the majority of stakeholders involved and may have disproportionate influence. Even when meetings are organised so that equal numbers of various stakeholders are present, there is still the question of how much influence different stakeholders have ‘behind closed doors’, through informal contacts. This kind of informal ‘lobbying’ should be distinguished from participatory processes, consultation and campaigning.

Participation and transparency
Directive 91/414/EEC is the key regulatory instrument for the authorisation of agricultural pesticide active ingredients at EU level and also determines the framework for national level regulation of pesticide products. Public involvement at national level varies – the Dutch system allows a six-week comment period on assessment reports, for example, while no official public participation takes place under the existing British and German systems. All existing active ingredients in the EU are undergoing a process of re-evaluation (see PN60 pp8–10) due to be finished by 2008. There is considerable public concern about how these pesticides are assessed. Many are commonly found as residues in food and water or are banned in some EU Member States because of their dangerous properties. The Directive is under review and the issues of transparency and public participation are included in those to be addressed, providing the opportunity for better involvement of public interest groups.
    The pesticides evaluation process is highly complex and hard for non-experts to follow. The technical framework for assessing the risks of specific pesticides covers test requirements, models for predicting the fate of pesticides in the environment and criteria for evaluation. It involves not only detailed technical knowledge, but also assumptions, interpretation and numerous uncertainties and the political weighing-up of various factors. The framework has been set up in close cooperation with industry and under working groups of various EU and national governmental institutions and research bodies. The relationship between these bodies is unclear. What is missing is a clear decision-making step from the work done in the different groups to how this work is used to evaluate pesticides. Public interest groups are not involved in any of the evaluation procedures, while industry is present in all bodies that determine the technical framework. As industry is an important stakeholder with its own clear interests in the process, its intimate involvement is unacceptable without full transparency and public participation.
    A major argument for restricting transparency is that confidential information is used in the evaluation process, which is not therefore made publicly available. European citizens have general rights under Right to Know legislation to get access to official documents, to get information about the state of the environment and measures taken to protect it and to participate in decision-making processes. The Right to Know (and to participate in decision-making) conflicts with the need to keep certain information confidential in order to protect individuals or commercial interests. What is needed is a clear definition of a ‘positive’ list of items that can be considered as confidential. Confidential information should be submitted by industry in separate documents, to enable open access to the majority of data used in the evaluation process.
    Little effort has been made so far by the European Commission to communicate the pesticides evaluation process to the public. The Health and Consumer Protection Directorate website does provide a compilation of documents, but overview information on procedures and linkages and contact addresses where detailed requests are handled are completely absent. Furthermore, public participation and transparency has often been avoided by the Commission, arguing that the authorities are capable of serving the needs of consumers. A further obstacle is the high cost of human and financial resources to enable public interest groups to participate compared to the huge industry resources.

Opening up decision-making
Much more open and democratic forms of evaluation already take place in other policy areas. In the EU’s chemicals risk assessment, public interest groups are fully involved and invited to submit information on the substances under assessment, in meetings with an open and constructive atmosphere. Likewise in the implementation groups of the Water Framework Directive and working groups of the OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the North-East Atlantic. The key lesson from these processes is the willingness of all parties to cooperate.
    Several Member States are supportive of opening up the pesticides evaluation process at EU level. There are various levels of potential participation ranging from full participation in all stages through to involvement in the technical framework and participation in coordination meetings, to simply ensuring a much more balanced composition of bodies and expert groups. Another approach would be to take part only in cases of particular active ingredients of major concern and those where the risks are uncertain or the assessment results highly ambiguous. These cases need broad debate on interpreting the facts, clarifying what is known and assessing preferences.

PAN Europe demands
Transparency and participation issues were discussed at a workshop of European NGOs in March 2003 and recommendations made for future participation in pesticides evaluation. PAN Europe is calling for the European Commission to actively facilitate public participation in the revision of the Pesticides Authorisation Directive by taking the following actions:

• Clear communication about procedures and a clear link between scientific discussions and the implementation of their outcomes in the evaluation process, separating purely technical issues from those involving assumptions and decisions. Public interest groups must be informed and invited
• dates for evaluating specific active ingredients must be published early on and regularly updated, to allow strategic planning of public involvement
• the evaluation process of single active ingredients must be fully transparent
• a comment period must be allowed on the European Commission Coordination full report. Comments must be treated via predetermined and agreed procedures and consultation meetings organised for specific critical cases
• public participation should be made possible in the meetings of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health
• decision-making on the composition of the scientific committee should be transparent and balanced, with public participation in proposing members
• in line with the Aarhus Convention, easy and cheap access to justice must be ensured for public interest groups at EU level
• travel costs must be covered for participation of public interest groups in working group meetings as a minimum.

Broader policy debate
Pesticide regulation cannot be regarded as a policy field on its own since it depends on agriculture, consumer and environmental policies too. The EU Thematic Strategy for Sustainable Use of Pesticides could set a clear framework to reduce the dependence on pesticide use in agriculture. Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the enlargement of the EU and its financial consequences will mean radical re-thinking about sustainable agriculture. The establishment of the new European Food Safety Agency could strengthen consumer interests in the evaluation of pesticides and set a clear structure for public participation. These policy developments offer a specific opportunity to integrate pesticides regulation into a completely new framework. It is a chance that should not be missed and which can only be taken with the active involvement of the public.

This article is based on PAN Europe’s research report ‘How to organise public participation in the pesticides evaluation process?’, by Dr Ute Meyer, March 2003. The research was funded by the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning & Environment. The report can be obtained from the PAN Europe Coordinator at the PAN UK office, <stephanie-paneurope@pan-uk.org>

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 60, June 2003, page 18-19]