On Wednesday 30 September, Pascal Canfin, the chair of the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, criticised the lack of transparency in the European procedure that may lead EU Member States to water down the 2013 EFSA guidance document on identifying the negative impact of pesticides on bees and on assessment methods.
He was speaking to the press by videoconference on the eve of a debate in the ENVI Council on this controversial issue regarding the fate of bees, numbers of which are in decline, in the knowledge that October will be a decisive month.
A workshop discussion between Council of the EU experts is scheduled for 8 October, and a decision will be taken on 23 October at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (ScoPAFF).
It should be remembered that the 2013 guidance document, which provided a high level of protection, has never been fully implemented because of the opposition of a majority of Member States, and fears are growing that a majority of Member States will choose the two options that offer the least protection from the four put forward by EFSA after the Commission required it to review its proposals (see EUROPE 12529/19).
“The total lack of transparency is problematic because it is not clear which Member State takes which position. Neither the proposal nor the Member States’ position has been made public. There is no ability to guarantee a minimum of democratic accountability. Representatives of the agriculture ministers can communicate with the companies that make the pesticides”, said Canfin.
He also announced that, depending on the outcome of the debate in the parliamentary committee, proposals could be made to remedy this problem.
In response to a question from EUROPE, the MEP acknowledged that taking the debate to the Council of the EU “to force ministers to come to a decision is one of the options”.
According to Canfin, “the only Member State that supports the options that are closest to the 2013 document is France”.
The MEP warned that Parliament could again object if the decision taken by the experts from the EU-27 experts leads to a position where the 2013 guidance document is not used as the basis for assessing the risks of pesticides to bees through a delegated act by the Commission.
If this happens, “the Commission will hide behind the Member States and there is a 90% chance that Parliament will object when the proposal comes back before it, in 2 or 3 years’ time”, as it did in October 2019 when it opposed a Commission proposal for a regulation that only partially used the material in the EFSA document (see EUROPE 12355/3).
“This will mean 3 wasted years. We will not have improved the situation regarding bees”, said Canfin.
On the same day, there was an informal meeting of the Environment Council, part of which was dedicated to biodiversity. And on Wednesday evening, in New York, the UN summit on biodiversity was due to open (see other news). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)