The Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed, in a ruling on Thursday 6 May, that the European Commission’s decision in 2013 to restrict the use of three bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides was justified on the grounds of the precautionary principle (case C-499/18 P).
The restrictions imposed concern imidacloprid from Bayer CropScience, clothianidin from Takeda Chemical Industries and Bayer CropScience and thiamethoxam from Syngenta (see EUROPE 10852/17).
The Bayer Group had appealed the EU General Court’s May 2018 ruling (see EUROPE 12022/33). It was unsuccessful and was ordered to pay the legal costs incurred by the Commission and the NGOs that had supported the EU institution’s decision in this case.
The Court of Justice also confirmed that the Commission was right to use the recent EFSA conclusions, even though these have not yet been validated by the EU Member States and any new scientific and technical information must be taken into account when reviewing the authorisation of a pesticide.
NGOs are delighted. “After eight years of legal work in support to the European Commission’s decision, we celebrate this confirmation by the Court that the European Commission was right to restrict the use of neonicotinoids. More than that, the Court confirms the definition of the precautionary principle: in case of doubts on the toxicity of a pesticide, the European Commission is entitled to ban it”, said a delighted Martin Dermine of the Pesticide Action Network.
According to Andrea Carta, a lawyer at Greenpeace, “the Court of Justice has reaffirmed that protecting nature and people’s health takes precedence over the narrow economic interests of powerful multinationals and that the precautionary principle is a cornerstone of EU law”.
MEP Martin Haüsling (Greens/EFA, Germany) called it a beautiful day for bees. “The Court of Justice has confirmed that the European Commission’s action to withdraw the highly controversial neonicotinoid poisons from the market, which are dangerous from the point of view of health and the protection of species, was legal”.
According to him, the ruling should also be understood as a call to “put a definitive end to the misuse of these insecticides through emergency authorisations”.
See the judgment: https://bit.ly/3baltSq (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)