HAVET & VANHUFFEL – Association d’avocats
In a judgment of 18 December 2025 (Case C-316/24 P), the Court of Justice of the European Union partially annulled the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 21 February 2024 (Case T-536/22) and the Commission decision rejecting the request for internal review of the renewal of the approval of cypermethrin, an insecticide used in the EU, on the grounds of several errors of law and insufficient reasoning.
The Court of Justice of the European Union partially annulled the judgment of the General Court of 21 February 2024 (T-536/22), which had dismissed the action brought by PAN Europe against the Commission decision of 23 June 2022 refusing the internal review of the regulation renewing the approval of cypermethrin, an insecticide authorised in the EU since 2005.
During the renewal procedure, the European Food Safety Authority (hereinafter “EFSA”) identified in 2018 four critical areas of concern relating to cypermethrin, in particular with regard to the environment. Despite those conclusions and a subsequent statement on risk mitigation measures, the Commission adopted, in November 2021, a regulation renewing the approval of the substance, subject to specific conditions.
In January 2022, the organisation PAN Europe requested an internal review of that regulation, claiming a breach of the precautionary principle and of the obligation to ensure a high level of protection of human health and the environment. After the Commission rejected that request and the General Court dismissed the action, PAN Europe brought an appeal before the Court of Justice.
The Court held, first, that the General Court failed to fulfil its obligation to state reasons, distorted the evidence and committed errors of law with regard to two critical areas identified by EFSA: the lack of sufficient information on the representativeness of the pesticide batches used in the studies and the high risk to non-target arthropods. The General Court did not explain why the position of the rapporteur Member State should prevail over that of EFSA, nor did it demonstrate that realistic risk mitigation measures existed.
With regard to the protection of non-target arthropods, the Court recalled that an active substance may be renewed only if at least one representative use of a plant protection product has been demonstrated to be safe under realistic conditions of use. However, neither the Commission nor the General Court adequately verified that this condition was met, the Commission having incorrectly deferred that assessment to the Member States.
Secondly and thirdly, the Court found that the General Court committed errors of law in holding that the second request for confirmatory information on the toxicity of cypermethrin isomers was not abusive and in finding that there were no plausible doubts as to the absence of long-term toxicity. The Court emphasised that the data required under the legislation on isomers had not been established and that long-term safety cannot be presumed without a specific assessment, in accordance with the precautionary principle.
In conclusion, the Court annulled the judgment of the General Court on several essential points and, ruling on the substance of the case, partially annulled the Commission decision of 23 June 2022. In particular, it held unlawful the findings relating to the representativeness of the batches, the realistic nature of the risk mitigation measures for non-target arthropods, the non-abusive character of the request for confirmatory information on isomers, and the absence of long-term toxicity of the representative use of cypermethrin.
To access the judgment of the General Court of the European Union annulled by the Court, follow the link: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FR/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62022TJ0536.
To access the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, follow the link: .https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=307240&mode=req&pageIndex=3&dir=&occ=first&part=1&text=&doclang=FR&cid=817410