On Monday 19 December, the Council of the EU adopted by qualified majority a decision inviting the European Commission to submit, within 6 months, a study complementing the impact assessment accompanying the proposal for a regulation on a more sustainable use of plant protection products.
The Council decision on further analysis of the effects of the proposal on food safety was eagerly awaited (see EUROPE 13083/17). It asks the Commission to present a study complementing the existing impact assessment on the following aspects:
- the quantitative impact of the Commission’s proposal on food production in the EU;
- the analysis of the consequences of the Commission’s proposal on the availability of food and feed in the Union;
- the potential impact on food and feed prices in general, and in particular for staple foods;
- the quantified impact of the increased administrative burden on the competitiveness and profitability of small and medium-sized farms;
- the availability of alternatives to plant protection products and the potentially increased risk of introducing and spreading harmful organisms in the Union due to the limited availability of other means of mitigating this risk;
- quantification of the impact of the ban on the use of plant protection products in sensitive areas;
- quantification of the impact of the proposed restriction on the use of plant protection products on forest stands and forest-dependent biodiversity.
On 7 December, Sarah Wiener (Greens/EFA, Austrian), the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the sustainable use of pesticides in the Parliament’s Environment Committee, criticised the Council’s decision to request further analysis of the effects of the proposal on the agricultural sector (see EUROPE 13079/13).
Swedish priorities. Pesticides are one of the agricultural priorities of the incoming Swedish Presidency of the EU Council, which begins on 1 January and ends on 30 June.
It hopes to make progress on this issue.
Among the agricultural matters, Stockholm says it wants to prioritise the revision of the legislation on nutritional labelling, while the Commission continues to cast doubt on the date of adoption of its proposal.
The Swedish Presidency of the Council will start discussions on the legislative framework for new genome editing techniques and on the new seed regulation, both of which the Commission is due to present in the second quarter of 2023.
On the food security front, Sweden stresses that it “intends to follow up on any proposals and initiatives designed to strengthen European food production”.
Link to the Swedish work programme: https://aeur.eu/f/4p5 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)