Shadow zones: transparency and pesticides regulation in The European Union

In recent years, pesticides have captured the attention of both policy-makers and the general public. A particular focus has been the transparency of the EU-level procedure for approving active substances, spurred by controversies surrounding the active substance glyphosate. Active substances are the ingredient in pesticides with the pesticidal effect. Once an active substance is approved at EU level, the pesticide containing that active substance must be authorised by each Member State. For this purpose, the EU’s 2009 Plant Protection Product Regulation divides Member States into three zones – Northern, Central and Southern – within which, zonal rapporteur Member States evaluate applications for authorisation. National authorisation decisions are based on these zonal evaluations. This novel system governing pesticides is under-researched. Furthermore, unlike active substance approval, the transparency of pesticide authorisation escapes public and policy scrutiny. Drawing on empirical research conducted for the European Parliament, this article evaluates the transparency of the zonal pesticide authorisation procedure. It thus contributes to the literature on transparency a detailed exploration of transparency in a highly complex, decentred and polycentric risk regulation regime. While it finds that the zonal pesticide authorisation procedure, generally speaking, does not operate transparently, it argues further that levels of transparency within the regime as a whole may vary significantly depending on multiple different factors. It introduces the concept of ‘chiaroscuro regulation’ to characterise and understand these varying levels of transparency across different elements of the regime and considers some of its implications