Glyphosate is approved in the EU until 15 December 2033. Irish plant protection products are listed in the Irish product register, which DAFM updates regularly and which can be searched by product name, active substance or function/crop.
Decide which question you are trying to answer
A question about hazard classification differs from one about dietary exposure, a product's Irish status or a laboratory result. Before you ask anyone, name the substance and have the document that prompted the concern to hand.
For a farm question, give the adviser the formulation, its PCS number, the intended use, the product instructions and the scientific question. If you are a buyer, give the commodity, the specification and the laboratory report. Attach the source documents so the recipient can read their full wording.
A conclusion about an active substance can inform the technical discussion. For the decision about an application on your land, look at the formulated product and your actual circumstances.
| Document or service | What to establish before using it |
|---|---|
| Scientific conclusion | Substance, assessment question, representative uses and any qualifications |
| Hazard-classification material | Which agency, which endpoint, what evidence and whether the opinion is final |
| Reasoned opinion on residues | Commodities, residue definitions and the proposals assessed |
| Regulatory act | The decision, its scope, when it applies and later amendments |
| Irish product entry | The exact formulation, its identifiers and use conditions |
Which agency assesses what
ECHA assessed the hazardous properties of glyphosate without considering the likelihood of exposure; exposure is considered in the risk assessment led by EFSA.
The final opinion of ECHA’s Committee for Risk Assessment, published in July 2022, was the basis for EFSA’s risk assessment. ECHA confirmed glyphosate’s hazard classification as causing serious eye damage and being toxic to aquatic life, and its committee concluded that classifying glyphosate as carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic is not justified.
EFSA published its conclusions on the peer review of glyphosate in the EFSA Journal on 26 July 2023, and the Commission decided on the renewal of the approval in November 2023.
When you meet a claim such as “safe for humans”, ask for the exact wording and the endpoint it covers: an operator handling the product, a consumer's diet and an environmental pathway are separate questions. Keep any stated limitation attached to the conclusion instead of shortening it to a slogan. When you write to a specialist, give the activity or commodity you have in mind so they can find the right part of the report.
What the EU approval covers
Glyphosate is approved as an active substance in the EU until 15 December 2033, and its use is subject to certain conditions and restrictions. The EU approval does not allow indiscriminate use: Member States are responsible for authorising and using plant protection products on their territories and must ensure the conditions and restrictions of the approval are followed.
Uses of glyphosate for desiccation to control the time point of harvest or to optimise threshing are not permitted in the EU.
To renew the approval beyond 15 December 2033, producers must apply by 15 December 2030 at the latest.
Do not read a headline about EU approval as an instruction for a particular crop, rate or method. For stock already on the farm, check the formulation's PCS number and the use conditions on its register entry.
How the last glyphosate assessment ran
The Commission appointed four Member States – France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden – as joint rapporteurs, a group called the Assessment Group on Glyphosate. The peer review ran 32 months, from December 2019 to July 2023, covering a 180,000-page dossier and 2,400 studies.
The renewal assessment report ran to approximately 11,000 pages; a typical assessment report for an active substance comprises fewer than 5,000 pages.
The assessment carried out between 2019 and 2023 by Member State competent authorities, EFSA and ECHA showed that there is currently no scientific or legal justification for a ban.
Global Glyphosate Study: current review
On 30 June 2025 the Commission requested ECHA and EFSA to evaluate new data on carcinogenic effects of glyphosate in the Global Glyphosate Study (2025). The Commission mandated both agencies to ask the study authors for all raw data and, once received, to evaluate whether the new information changes their previous conclusions on hazard (ECHA) or risk assessment (EFSA).
Keep your spray records in one place. Free to start.
Follow the meeting links on EFSA's glyphosate topic page to see what stage the review has reached. A meeting announcement describes an event, not a finding. Tell an exchange with the study authors apart from a working-group discussion and from a completed assessment. If you send a scientific enquiry, name both the earlier conclusion and the newer publication and ask whether the newer material changes the point you need answered.
On 10 December 2025 EFSA and ECHA hosted representatives of the Ramazzini Institute (Bologna, Italy) at EFSA’s premises to discuss the study’s methodology and findings ahead of their assessments. On 13 March 2026 EFSA published the minutes of that meeting and a supporting Q&A document.
ECHA already concluded twice, in 2017 and 2022, that no classification for carcinogenicity is warranted for glyphosate. If ECHA or EFSA confirm that glyphosate no longer meets the approval criteria in Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009, or indicate that the conditions of approval should be amended, the Commission will act immediately to amend or withdraw the approval.
Prothioconazole: the EFSA document is an MRL assessment
The EFSA document found for “prothioconazole EFSA conclusion” modifies existing maximum residue levels (MRLs). Sipcam Oxon SpA applied under Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 to the Greek authority to modify the MRLs for prothioconazole in pome fruits, apricots, cherries, plums, cucurbits with edible and inedible peel and rice, on the basis of intended EU uses.
EFSA proposes to amend the existing MRLs. The risk assessment was performed for the parent prothioconazole; for the additional residue definitions related to the triazole derivative metabolites (TDMs), EFSA performed an indicative exposure assessment considering only the crops under consideration.
The intended use assessed on apple is a foliar broadcast spray at BBCH 39–85, two applications 7 days apart at 120 g a.i./ha, with a pre-harvest interval of 35 days.
Residue definitions in the prothioconazole opinion
For enforcement the residue definition is prothioconazole-desthio (sum of isomers). For risk assessment it is the sum of prothioconazole-desthio and all metabolites containing the 2-(1-chlorocyclopropyl)-3-(2-chlorophenyl)-2-hydroxypropyl-2H-1,2,4-triazole moiety, namely the α-, 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-hydroxy-desthio metabolites (M14 to M18), expressed as prothioconazole-desthio.
Triazole alanine (TA), triazole lactic acid (TLA) and triazole acetic acid (TAA) have separate residue definitions 2, 3 and 4. In the apple residue trials, each of the five hydroxy metabolites was below the limit of quantification of 0.01 mg/kg. The calculated MRL for apples, quinces, medlars and loquats in northern Europe is 0.05 mg/kg.
Consumer exposure was modelled with the EFSA PRIMo file for acute and chronic exposure. For comparing laboratory results with these definitions, see the residue-analysis guide.
Reading the tables and numbers in a residue opinion
Before you take a figure out of the opinion, read the title and summary and work out what the number is: a proposed MRL, a trial result, a model input or something else. Keep its units, the commodity and the residue definition with it. A scientific proposal of this kind does not by itself set the legal limit for a delivery, so give the buyer or laboratory the report and the commodity details.
The opinion keeps intended uses, residue trials, consumer-exposure inputs and proposed MRLs apart, and its tables use different residue definitions for enforcement and for risk assessment. When you send a table to anyone for comment, include the caption, the column headings, the footnotes and the row. Keep a less-than sign as a less-than sign instead of turning it into an exact value. An intended use in the opinion is not a product instruction valid in Ireland.
Match the definition above the table to what your laboratory measured before comparing concentrations, and ask the laboratory which metabolites its panel covers for the sampled commodity.
Record the answer
When a specialist answers, file the reply with the enquiry and the documents they reviewed, so a colleague can later see which scenario was examined and which was not. If the answer changes a planned job, update the job instruction through your normal decision process and keep the actual spray records separate from later scientific correspondence.
Next step
Look up the product in the Irish product register; EU approval of glyphosate does not itself authorise any formulated product.