The sales bans on Saxon wines that contained residues of an insecticide that is illegal in Germany were unlawful. The maximum content of the pesticide dimethoate had not been set in the maximum residue limit regulation issued by the Federal Ministry, but in an EU regulation, justified on Thursday the 3rd Senate of the Federal Administrative Court Leipzig his decision.
Concretely, it was about the sales ban for several wines, which had been imposed in June 2016 by the district of Meißen, because the content of dimethoate in the wine had exceeded the value of 0.01 milligrams per kilo. In the previous year, the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in Bautzen had rejected the appeal of the Meißen winegrowers' cooperative on the grounds that this pesticide was not approved in Germany (OVG Bautzen, judgment dated January 27, 2022 - 3 A 1196/19). Several tens of thousands of liters of wine were destroyed according to the winegrowers' cooperative as a result.
In the EU regulation, limits of 0.02 milligrams per kilo were set for dimethoate, because these values were classified as not hazardous to health. This value had fallen below the wines concerned.
