How Europe sells products deemed too dangerous for Europeans to the rest of the world
Briefing Paper
September 2024
Highly hazardous pesticides, unsafe toys, polluting single-use plastics, and other goods that cannot be put on the market in the EU are still being produced across the territory to be exported outside the EU borders. Applying outrageous double standards, several pieces of EU legislation, including those banning some products because of their impacts on public health, human rights, animals and the environment, do not apply when the goods produced in the EU are meant to be used or consumed in non-EU countries.
This briefing paper, supported by CIDSE, together with more than 100 non-governmental organisations including Amnesty International, the Children’s Rights International Network and Greenpeace, documents how these trade loopholes appear in current and proposed EU laws.
The endorsing organisations call on the European Union to close what they call “hypocritical, cruel, unfair and intolerable” loopholes which allow companies in the EU to export products to other parts of the world even when those products have been banned in Europe for safety reasons.
These loopholes could be closed simultaneously with a single cross-cutting piece of legislation. There is already precedent in certain sectoral legislation to address this issue.
To find out more, read the full Briefing Paper.
Additional reading:
- “Cruel” trade loopholes let European companies export toxic products banned from EU market, Greenpeace press release, 26 September 2024
- Stop Double Standards!“: Gemeinsam für einen EU-Exportstopp hochgefährlicher Pestizide, DKA Austria
- EU pesticides export ban: what could be the consequences? An investigation into the arguments and rationales for the export of selected highly toxic pesticides, Study commissioned by CCFD-Terre Solidaire, Corporate Europe Observatory, DKA Austria, European Environmental Bureau, Ekō, Humundi, Pesticide Action Network Europe, Pestizid Aktions-Netzwerk, Public Eye, Veblen Institute for Economic Reforms, WeMove Europe, April 2024. (French summary)
- Interdits ici. Exportés là-bas. Mortels partout, Entraide et Fraternité, April 2023
Contacts:
- CIDSE: Susana Hernández Torres, Corporate Power and Human Rights Officer (hernandez(at)cidse.org)
- Greenpeace: Lis Cunha, EU Trade Campaigner (lis.cunha(at)greenpeace.org)
- Veblen Institute: Stephanie Kpenou, Advocacy Officer for trade policy reform: (kpenou(at)veblen-institute.org)
Credits images:
Article: Brian Yurasits / Unsplash
Publication cover: Zuzanna Szczepańska / Unsplash