The European Parliament could still have established a ban on that Brazilian import, but at the time of the vote on Thursday afternoon, too many MEPs were already on their way home.
The European Commission had agreed to a request from chemical company BASF to allow Brazilian products treated with small amounts of fipronil, such as sugarcane and poultry. Brussels had even quadrupled the permissible minimum criteria.
The European Parliament tried to prevent the easing of import product rules. On Thursday, it supported by majority (317 for, 148 against) an objection by MEP Anja Hazekamp (Party for the Animals) to prevent the import of Brazilian products with fipronil residues.
Although a large majority supported the objection, the easing will strikingly go ahead anyway: at the time of the vote, too many MEPs were already heading home for the objection to have binding effect. To overturn a European Commission decision ('delegated act'), support is needed from half of the 705 parliamentarians regardless of turnout: 353 votes in favor.
A note to the European Parliament pointed out that in the Netherlands a million chickens had to be culled after a fipronil contamination, and that it would be absurd to now turn a blind eye to imported products contaminated with it.
Hazekamp also noted "that it will become more common for the EU to import products with lower standards for food safety and environmental and animal welfare as more free trade agreements are concluded with third countries. According to Hazekamp, accepting fipronil meat from Brazil is ‘just a preview of what awaits us if the Mercosur agreement becomes a reality’.”
However, due to the meeting procedures in Strasbourg, there was no successful vote on a ban. The common practice during the plenary week is to hold votes mostly on Tuesday and Wednesday, while Thursday is mainly reserved for debates on international (foreign) matters.
The fact that votes are also handled on Thursday is partly due to the meeting pressure ahead of the upcoming European election campaign: extra meeting weeks are held and agendas are packed.
Many MEPs use the last (Thursday) meeting day as a ‘travel day’ to return to their own EU country. The initiators of the objection procedure anticipated this and had asked the Presidium to move the vote to Wednesday. But this was rejected.
As a result, about two hundred EU politicians were already en route to train or plane, and the fipronil ban was defeated with the support of 317 votes (about 36 short), with 148 against and 77 abstentions.