Glyphosate Effect: Has the Glyphosate Controversy Affected the EU’s Regulatory Epistemology?

Glyphosate’s authorisation will expire in 2022 and its re-approval will take place in a changed legal and political landscape: the national phase of risk assessment is entrusted to a taskforce of four Member States, and, from 2021, the reform of the general food law will apply, imposing, inter alia, more ambitious transparency standards. Taking stock of these developments, this contribution analyses, from a legal perspective, whether and how the glyphosate dispute has contributed to the development of the EU’s regulatory epistemology, with specific regard to food governance. It identifies the “manifesto” of the EU’s regulatory epistemology in the 2002 guidelines on the collection and use of expertise and reads them in the light of the glyphosate dispute. In particular, it focuses on the legal arrangements reflecting the principles established in the 2002 guidelines (quality, openness, effectiveness) and analyses them against the tensions that emerged throughout the dispute with regard to the sources, levels and purposes of EU regulatory knowledge-making. It then considers whether and how such tensions have been addressed by legislative reform and whether this has resulted in a further refinement of the EU’s regulatory epistemology.