NGO Report Says Pesticide Industry Language Appears Almost Verbatim in EU Lawmakers’ Draft Reform

12 October 2026, Brussels: A report published October 7, 2026 by the Brussels-based watchdog group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) alleges that lobbying demands from pesticide manufacturers and farm groups were incorporated, in some cases almost word for word, into both the European Commission’s pesticide simplification proposal and amendments tabled by the European Parliament’s lead lawmakers on the file, intensifying an already contentious debate over how long pesticides should stay approved in the EU.

The report concerns the “Food and Feed Safety Omnibus,” part of a wider EU simplification package known as Omnibus X, which would rewrite how pesticide active substances are approved and renewed under EU Regulation 1107/2009. CEO names Bayer, BASF, CropLife Europe (the industry’s EU trade association), and farm lobby Copa-Cogeca as the sources of language it says reappears in the Commission’s text and in amendments from the Parliament’s two co-rapporteurs on the file, Herbert Dorfmann (European People’s Party, European Parliament agriculture committee) and Michele Picaro (European Conservatives and Reformists).

According to the report, four specific elements are at issue:

• Unlimited, open-ended approval for most active substances rather than periodic renewal, a provision CEO says Bayer and Copa-Cogeca pushed for in meetings with the Commission’s health department, DG SANTE, and which the co-rapporteurs reportedly want extended to cover pesticide products as well as active substances, and applied retroactively.
• Longer grace periods, up to three years by default, allowing banned or withdrawn pesticides to remain on the market, which CEO attributes to demands from CropLife Europe and Bayer.
• Wider EU-wide derogations (exemptions) of up to ten years, which CEO says other MEPs copied from industry wording.
• Challenges to the EU’s existing “cut-off criteria,” which automatically bar substances shown to cause cancer or disrupt the endocrine system, a change CEO attributes to a group of MEPs it describes as right-wing.

CEO also criticizes Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi for not ordering a full impact assessment of the proposal before it was published, and says CropLife Europe and Copa-Cogeca have separately lobbied against giving biocontrol products (pest control agents based on living organisms or natural compounds) more favorable regulatory treatment as alternatives to conventional chemistry.

As of the most recent follow-up coverage, published October 8, 2026 by the Belgian outlet La Libre, neither the European Commission nor Bayer, BASF, CropLife Europe, Copa-Cogeca, Dorfmann, or Picaro had issued a direct response to CEO’s specific allegations. The Commission’s general, previously stated justification for the broader simplification package is that it responds to repeated requests from stakeholders for faster, clearer regulatory procedures for plant protection products.

The Parliament report comes after the Council of the EU, representing member state governments, adopted its own negotiating position on the same file on September 29-30, 2026, which scaled back the Commission’s original unlimited-approval plan to a cap of 15 years for most first-time approvals and up to 25 years for renewals, with unlimited duration reserved for low-risk substances only. The Parliament has yet to take a formal position, with a vote expected this autumn, after which negotiations between the Parliament, Council, and Commission would begin.

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