2023-11-22 17:07:24
With an unusual decision, the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday halted the planned EU regulation to reduce the use of plant protection products. A left-wing majority of MPs completely rejected a version of the EU Commission’s original proposal from June 2022, which was weakened by numerous compromise proposals, in the first reading.
This means that there will be no further discussion of the proposal in this legislative period, which lasts until the beginning of 2024; the law is rejected. A new EU Commission would have to present a new proposal after the European elections. It remains to be seen whether this will happen.
The core of the Commission’s proposal was to halve the use of plant protection products in the EU by 2030. The EU authority also wanted to introduce its own savings target of 50 percent for particularly dangerous pesticides. She also wanted to ban the use of pesticides on all publicly accessible green spaces. She justified her proposal by saying that around 80 percent of the soil in the EU is contaminated with pesticides and that one in ten bee species is threatened with extinction.
“Holed beyond recognition”
The responsible parliamentary rapporteur, the Austrian Green Party Sarah Wiener, tried to tighten the Commission’s proposal in further discussions. Among other things, she suggested a complete ban on pesticides in agriculturally sensitive areas. This means that it also prevailed in the Parliament’s Environment Committee. In the plenary session, however, support for amendments in the interests of farmers, the majority of whom rejected the Commission proposal, predominated.
After the vote, Wiener spoke of a “black day” for nature and farmers alike. The “strong lobby of the pesticide industry and its conservative-right representation in the EU Parliament” won. In contrast, CDU MP Norbert Lins said that the discussion was now being put on the right track: “We have to find solutions together with and not against agriculture.” His party colleague Peter Liese added that those who “believe that” have prevailed. that the European Union must hold back from new burdens in the current difficult world situation.” The proposal from then Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans was “completely exaggerated”. The Commission hardly took farmers’ real living conditions into account.
The Austrian ÖVP politician Alexander Bernhuber also rejected the “extremist approach” of the Commission and Wiener. “We all want fewer pesticides to be used on our soil. But its reduction must not endanger food production in Europe, it must not make food production more expensive, and it certainly must not lead to farmers giving up their profession.”
Jakob Arnold Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 170 A comment from Dietrich Creutzburg, Berlin Published/Updated: Recommendations: 45 Birgit Ochs Published/Updated: 50 minutes ago Recommendations: 3
The Green MP Jutta Paulus justified the rejection of the overall proposal by saying that it had been “perforated beyond recognition” by the many amendments. “The conservatives are putting the health of farmers and biodiversity at risk by fighting the reduction of pesticides with all means.” Biodiversity is an insurance policy for survival. “The massive use of pesticides endangers biodiversity and thus our drinking water, clean air and fertile soil.”
The German Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) spoke of a “catastrophic signal for the environment and health”. BUND chairman Olaf Bandt said that in the end there was only a “pitiful remainder of the proposal” left to vote on. “What remains is a pile of broken pieces.” The losers are people, nature and food security. Just a week ago, the EU Commission extended the approval of the pesticide glyphosate by 10 years. According to the BUND, the rejection of the pesticide law is a “further setback”.
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