The United States and 15 other countries criticized the European Union on Thursday, July 4, saying its “hazard-based” approach to regulating the use of pesticides and other “critical tools” used by farmers is detrimental to livelihoods around the world.

Their statement, submitted to the World Trade Organization, said that the EU approach created great uncertainty and deviated from scientific risk assessments, creating failures that threaten to increase significantly in the coming years.

They called on the EU to review its approach to product approval, use internationally accepted methods for setting acceptable levels for potentially harmful ingredients, and end the “unnecessarily and inappropriate” trade restriction.

The statement was supported by Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, USA and Uruguay.

Signatory countries said that farmers should have access to “the full range of safe tools and technologies” to solve the problem of producing more food.

A statement sent for discussion to the WTO Council on Trade in Goods states that the EU has actually banned certain substances that other WTO members consider safe.

“When these measures are implemented, it seems that the EU is unilaterally trying to impose its own internal regulatory approach on its trading partners,” the statement said.