Jeff Layman wrote:

Sorry - I'm a bit confused here. You mentioned in an earlier thread that
glyphosate had been banned in The Netherlands for non-professional use.
According to your comment, unless *all* MS agree to allow it, then it
will be banned throughout the EU. So is this effectively a negative
veto? If one MS doesn't want it, and the rest do, it is banned? And if
one MS wants it, and all the rest don't, it is banned? Looks like
one-sided democracy to me.

If you looked up the article by the Commissioner for Food Safety
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-16-2011_en.htm
you will see that the measure requires _qualified majority_ support.
If you look up "qualified majority"
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/qualified_majority.html
you will see that this means that 16 out of the 28 states in the EU
must support the measure, and that they must represent
at least 65% of the EU population.

That seems to me a perfectly rational and democratic way of deciding
on an issue like this.

I thought the Commissioner's statement was slightly misleading
in not stating that there is a difference of opinion
between the EU's ECHA (European Chemicals Agency)
and the UN/WHO's IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer).
The IARC believes that glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic"
while the ECHA believes it is "unlikely to be carcinogenic".

Also the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) seems to support
the WHO position.

My non-expert view, having looked at the documentation on the subject,
is that the WHO's view is more likely to be correct,
as it is based on a number of statistical studies in Canada and the USA,
while the ECHA's view is slightly indirect,
being based on criticism of the statistical arguments in these studies.
The FDA is currently carrying out its own studies.




--
Timothy Murphy
gayleard /at/ eircom.net
School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin