On Thursday, 16 July, PAN Europe (Pesticide Action Network Europe) became alarmed that a new step towards burying effective measures to protect bees in Europe has emerged with the support of a majority of Member States.
A discussion is on the agenda of the EU’s PAFF Committee meeting (16–17 July) on the future of the 2013 EFSA guidance document on the risk assessment of pesticides on honeybees, bumblebees, and wild bees—highly protective guidelines, which Member States had previously refused to apply in their entirety (see EUROPE 12355/3 and EUROPE 12354/8).
According to a leaked document, EFSA is now giving Member States four options to decide on the future of the guidance document; the NGO laments that these options open the door to the document being watered down.
One of the four options consists of using a mathematical model, the Beehave model, to define the “acceptable” level of increase in bee mortality due to pesticides.
This model was co-produced by the company Syngenta and pushed by the European Crop Protection Association. This association maintains that a 20% mortality of foragers is acceptable. At least 15 Member States support such an approach.
“It is a scandal that a so-called ‘independent’ EU agency bends to the interests of pesticide companies and accepts to discard and disregard its own previous work”, Martin Dermine, an environmental policy expert at PAN Europe. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)