Friday 27 April 2018 will be seen as a red-letter day for bee populations. EU member states finally agreed to a virtually total ban on the three neonicotinoids (clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam) most harmful to bees by the end of the year. The three pesticides have been subject to a partial ban in the EU since 2013.
The decision comes as great relief to those working to protect all species of bees and biodiversity, the fates of which have provoked an unprecedented level of mobilisation (see EUROPE 12008 and 11919).
Meeting in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF committee), member state experts approved the European Commission proposal seeking to extend the partial ban to all open field crops. The use of these neonicotinoids will only be permitted in permanent greenhouses.
After two postponements of voting, in December of last year and in March of this, the required qualified majority of member states was reached this time.
Sixteen countries representing three quarters (76.1%) of the EU population voted for the proposal that was based on the opinion of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA): France, Germany, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Slovenia, Estonia, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta.
Four voted against: Romania, Czech Republic, Denmark and Hungary.
Eight abstained: Poland, Belgium, Slovakia, Finland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The national experts approved the three draft implementing regulations amending implementing regulation 540/2011 on the conditions of authorisation of each of the three active substances (see EUROPE 11753). The regulation will be formally adopted by the Commission “in the coming weeks” and will become applicable by the end of 2018, the Commission has indicated.
“Bee health remains of paramount importance since it concerns biodiversity, food production and the environment”, said Health and Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis ion a press release.
Satisfaction in Parliament and among NGOs. “We didn’t think it was going to happen but we have to say that the campaigning and active involvement of NGOs, the media and several of us has ultimately paid off”, said an overjoyed Eric Andrieu (S&D, France), who chairs the European Parliament PEST (pesticides) special committee (see EUROPE 11986). He went on: “When one realises that bees pollinate 84% of European crops and 4,000 varieties of plant and that the mortality rate among bees is as high as 80% in some regions of Europe, this vote was vital for the future of biodiversity and our agriculture”.
His fellow MEP Michèle Rivasi (Greens/EFA, France) hailed an “urgently needed” decision, arguing that what is needed now is to “increase efforts to reassess our agricultural model that is based on the massive use of pesticides which are destroying biodiversity and constitute a major problem for public health”.
The same tone was adopted by NGOs, such as the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, a member of the Save the Bees coalition, which called this a “historic decision”, while arguing that more must be done.
“These three neonicotinoids are just the tip of the iceberg. Governments must ban all bee-harming pesticides and finally shift away from toxic chemicals in farming”, said Franziska Achterberg on behalf of Greenpeace.
On Thursday 17 May, the European Court of Justice will deliver its rulings on the three cases brought by Bayer, Syngenta and BASF against the Commission for the restrictions imposed in 2013 on the use of the three neonicotinoids. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)