PAN Europe is co-organising a high-level event at the European Parliament tomorrow Wednesday 19 March to address an urgent and largely overlooked global threat to drinking water: Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). The conference streamed online, will bring together leading experts and policymakers to discuss the environmental and public health risks all over Europe posed by TFA, a highly persistent breakdown product of several chemicals, especially PFAS pesticides. Keynote speaker Hans Peter Arp will explain why we are overstepping a planetary boundary with TFA accumulation. [1]
The roundtable discussion, moderated by journalist Natasha Foote, will be hosted by MEPs Cristina Guarda (Greens/EFA) and Sigrid Friis (Renew). It will feature new insights from prominent experts, including Prof. Hans Peter Arp, Environmental Chemist; Dr Helena Banning, Scientific Associate at the German Federal Environment Agency; Dr Manuela Tiramani, Head of the Pesticides Peer Review Unit at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA); Oliver Loebel, Secretary General of the European Federation of National Associations of Water Services (EurEau); Dr Angeliki Lysimachou, Environmental Toxicologist and Head of Science and Policy at PAN Europe; and Dr Helmut Burtscher-Schaden, Biochemist at Global 2000 (Friends of the Earth Austria). Check out the full program here.
TFA pollution has reached alarming levels across Europe, with concentrations significantly higher than those of other PFAS pollutants, including in drinking water. This raises serious concerns for both environmental and public health.
Recognising the urgency of this issue, 50 Members of the European Parliament have called on the European Commission to take decisive action. [2] While the EU has recently moved to ban the endocrine-disrupting PFAS pesticide flufenacet and has proposed banning flutonalil, experts warn that a complete ban on all PFAS pesticides is necessary to prevent substitution with equally harmful substances. [3] For more information, visit our campaign page. [4]
This event will highlight the pressing need for stronger regulatory action to safeguard public health and Europe’s water sources from persistent chemical contamination.
For media inquiries, please contact: María Fernández, Press Officer at PAN Europe, maria [at] pan-europe.info, +34 647 25 1883
Notes:
[1] The Global Threat from the Irreversible Accumulation of Trifluoroacetic Acid (TFA)
