The EU is moving to dilute pesticide rules after chemical companies and agricultural groups successfully lobbied Brussels about the regulatory burden being too onerous, according to documents seen by the FT.
The European Commission has led a push to streamline pesticide regulation as part of an effort to ease the burden on farmers and increase the bloc’s competitiveness. But parts of the simplification drive have ended up closely reflecting the demands of fertiliser and chemical companies to roll back environmental and health safeguards.
Documents obtained via freedom of information requests and shared with the FT by the NGO Corporate Europe Observatory show that parts of the Commission proposal matches requests by industry to ease restrictions on banned substances.
Under existing rules, active substances that have already been approved for use in pesticides must be reassessed every 15 years. The Commission has proposed removing these follow-up checks as part of its so-called Food and Feed Safety Omnibus law, whose aim is to cut back on “unnecessary administrative costs and burdens for agrifood producers”.
Meeting logs show that the proposed change was introduced after German chemicals group Bayer and agricultural lobby Copa Cogeca had called for the “unlimited” approval of pesticides.
Copa Cogeca declined to comment.
Bayer said: “These are all positions that we support . . . because we believe they are important and justified, from an agro-economic and/or scientific perspective.”
The draft law was put forward in December as part of the EU’s broader efforts to cut red tape in a bid to make its businesses more competitive compared with rivals in the US and China. But critics have accused Brussels of gutting environmental standards and its green agenda in the process.
The Commission also proposed exempting chemicals from bans where they are deemed necessary to maintain crop yields, a change that also aligns with industry demands.
Under current rules, EU-wide exemptions from bans on harmful pesticides are granted only where removing a product from the market would threaten plant health, such as by leaving crops exposed to widespread pests — a higher threshold.
Other industry-friendly changes included extending the grace period after a pesticide is banned before it must be withdrawn from use, from 18 months to as long as three years, where no economically viable alternatives exist.
The inclusion of industry demands in the proposal followed meetings with senior officials involved in drafting the law.
The FT identified 19 meetings held since the start of 2025 by farmers’ lobby Copa-Cogeca on the food safety omnibus or on “plant protection” with Commission officials and EU lawmakers, according to meeting logs.
This included a meeting with Elisabeth Werner, director-general of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, and with Sandra Gallina, director-general of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety on October 8 2025, before the legislation was proposed in mid-December.
The Commission said the meeting had been disclosed in its transparency register. A spokesperson said targeted reviews of approved substances could be taken if new safety safethy concerns emerged.
They added that “simpler rules are not weaker rules, they are rules that are easier to apply, harder to sidestep. This will be to the benefit of consumers, the protection of health and the environment alike.”
Lobbying intensified in the European parliament this year as it still needs to vote on the rules.
The parliament’s leading lawmakers on the topic have proposed longer exemption periods for bans and a laxer approach to carcinogenic pesticides — both of which echo industry positions.
“This is a complete rollback led by industry,” said Nina Holland, a researcher at the Corporate Europe Observatory. “If you don’t put restrictions on harmful pesticides, then the incentives to shift to other alternatives is just much lower.”
Michele Picaro, a rightwing Italian MEP shepherding the omnibus law, has recorded nine meetings since March on this bill with organisations including fertiliser groups. His conservative colleague Herbert Dorfmann has recorded two meetings on the topic.
Picaro did not respond to a request for comment but his parliamentary colleague Dorfmann said his “main goal is to unlock and open up the European authorisation system for innovation . . . those who defend this system do not see that we are losing ground on innovation compared to other parts of the world”.
EU governments, who also need to approve the final changes, are also broadly in favour of helping industry, though they want unlimited approvals to apply only to low-risk pesticides.
Still, their overall position is likely to lead to weaker rules on pesticides compared with current legislation, Holland said.