On Tuesday 27 June, NGOs for the protection of bees, scientists, European policy-makers, beekeepers, farmers and other parties interested in defending the declining bee population, given how important bees are for pollination, announced that they are to set up a European bee partnership in order to improve the collection and sharing of bee data.
This commitment was taken during a scientific conference that was co-chaired by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Copa-Cogeca, EPBA, Bee Life and ECPA. The conference hosted over 120 participants in Brussels on 27 June, as part of the European Parliament's annual Week of Bees and Pollination.
EFSA announced its support for this bee partnership project. It is indeed EFSA that published the scientific opinions which form the basis of the restrictions on the use of three bee-killing neonicotinoids, and the project being developed at the Commission on the near-total ban of these neonicotinoids.
"Many more discussions will be needed to make this partnership as broad and representative as possible”, Simon More, who chairs EFSA’s MUST-B working group on risks to bees, said.
Mariya Gabriel MEP (EPP, Bulgaria), who chairs the European Parliament's working group on apiculture and bee health, underlined the importance in the long term of pooling their efforts "to enable a more robust assessment of bee health in the EU”. Mortality has reached 80% in certain hives in Europe. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)