This is a victory for human health and bees. Member State experts, meeting in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF), on Tuesday 22 October, gave their support by qualified majority to the Commission's draft implementing regulation on not renewing the EU licence for thiacloprid, the active substance of a neonicotinoid pesticide.
"The Commission will adopt the Regulation and publish it in the Official Journal by the end of November 2019", said Food Safety Spokesperson Anca Paduraru, confirming this news to EUROPE.
The ban, when formally adopted, will come into force at the end of April 2020, at the end of the licence term.
This progress was welcomed by the NGO SumOfUs, an international consumer and workers' group, which launched a petition, signed by 383,000 people, calling for a ban on the pesticide because of its links to cancer and reproductive problems in agricultural workers and evidence that it harms bees and other pollinators.
"Today Europeans persuaded our decision makers to unite behind the science and ban toxic Thiacloprid, despite every attempt by its producer Bayer and agroindustry", says SumOfUs campaign manager Rebecca Falcon in a statement. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)