Report

Implementation of a ban on exports of certain hazardous pesticides from Germany

Mirka Fries, Ida Westphal
Report
2022

After the SPD, FDP and Bündnis 90/The Greens announced in their coalition agreement to ban the export of certain pesticides from Germany that are not authorised in the EU, the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) has now announced that it will prepare a draft bill for a corresponding ordinance by the end of 2022. A legal opinion by Mirka Fries and Ida Westphal (only available in German), commissioned by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the INKOTA network, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN Germany) and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, shows how such an export ban can be implemented by the German government in the most comprehensive way possible to protect human health and the environment with legal certainty. An export ban on certain pesticides will contribute to the dismantling of double standards in the pesticide trade. Double standards arise, among other things, from the fact that pesticides which may not be used in one's own country for environmental or health protection reasons are nevertheless legal to sell to other countries. Thus, pesticide products and active ingredients that are not authorised or approved in the EU are nevertheless exported from Germany to non-European countries. Especially in the global South, the use of these pesticides, some of which are highly dangerous, poses a great risk to farmers, farm workers and the rural population.

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