The NGO PAN Europe (Pesticide Action Network), which campaigns for the sustainable use of pesticides, published, on Tuesday 27 September, a new report criticising the EU’s failure to meet regulatory requirements for substitution of the most toxic pesticides (see EUROPE 12985/10).
The report, entitled ‘Pesticide Paradise: How industry and officials protect the most toxic pesticides’, blames this regulatory failure on two causes:
- on the one hand, the European Commission and the Member States have reversed the objective of the 2009 Regulation on the marketing authorisation of pesticides by adopting guidelines that contradict it. These guidelines were drafted by the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), a non-transparent external body that follows the interests of the chemical industry, denounces PAN Europe.
- on the other hand, national officials are rejecting perfectly viable non-chemical pesticides.
The report also shows that since 2011, the number of fruits containing toxic pesticide residues, which should have been banned in the EU, has increased considerably, which PAN Europe had already denounced in July (see EUROPE 12959/24).
To consult the report: https://aeur.eu/f/3ae (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)