Vienna’s public prosecutor’s office announced this week that it has dropped criminal prosecution of the German concern Bayer, accused by a group of non-governmental organizations of failing to provide data on the risks associated with the use of glyphosate, a controversial herbicide, AFP reports.

“All complaints about glyphosate have been reviewed. They have been rejected and the ongoing investigation is closed,” a state ministry spokesman told AFP.

In September 2023, the Austrian environmental association Global 2000 presented to the Vienna prosecutor’s office new elements against Bayer, which in 2018 bought the American company Monsanto, the producer of the Roundup herbicide based on glyphosate, reports Agerpres.

“In its reauthorization file, Bayer unreasonably excluded unfavorable data or misrepresented the results,” Helmut Burcher-Schaden, a biochemist at Global 2000, told AFP at the time. “adverse effects of glyphosate on the nervous system,” especially in pregnant women and young children, the document submitted to the court said.

Bayer, which is fighting a series of lawsuits in the United States related to the carcinogenic effects of glyphosate, denies that it “hid scientific research”.

Authorized in the EU for the next 10 years

The European Commission, whose member states have different positions on this issue, decided in mid-November to extend the authorization for the use of glyphosate in the EU for the next ten years. The Commission relied on a scientific assessment by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), according to which the level of risk does not justify a ban on this herbicide.

Global 2000, associated with Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe and four other NGOs (Future Generations, PAN Germany, PAN Holland, Client Earth), sent a formal request to the European executive in January to “review” the decision. In case of a negative response from the Commission, public organizations are preparing to bring this issue to the Court of the European Union.

Glyphosate, which is subject to restrictions or even bans in several countries around the world, was classified in 2015 as “probably carcinogenic” to humans by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Read also:

• Big upheavals in the German agro-pharmaceutical concern Bayer
• Sentenced to pay huge damages in the US due to glyphosate, the Bayer concern announces an appeal
• First EU country to ban glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the world. The decision adopted by the Austrian parliament “as a precautionary measure”