The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced, on Tuesday 6 February at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, that the proposal to halve the use of pesticides in the EU should be withdrawn, during a debate on the results of the European Council of 1 February (see EUROPE 13341/4).
The proposal “has become a symbol of polarisation”, noted Ursula von der Leyen, at a time when angry farmers have for weeks been denouncing European green standards as excessive.
“It has been rejected by Parliament, and there has been no further progress in the EU Council either. This is why I will be proposing to the College (of Commissioners) that they withdraw this proposal”, she told MEPs.
“The topic stays”, but “to move forward, more dialogue and a different approach is needed. The Commission could make a new, much more mature proposal, with the participation of stakeholders”, said Ms von der Leyen, without giving a date.
“Farmers need economic reasons to take nature protection measures; perhaps we haven’t explained these reasons to them convincingly”, she regretted.
Faced with the agricultural crisis, the Commission is trying to make more pledges: last week it proposed granting a partial derogation from set-aside obligations and limiting Ukrainian agricultural imports.
On Tuesday, Ursula von der Leyen once again said that she was aware of the farmers’ discontent: faced with the effects of climate change and the war in Ukraine, " many of them feel pushed into a corner (...) Our farmers deserve to be listened to”.
But, “they also know that agriculture needs to move to a more sustainable model of production, so that their farms remain profitable in the years to come”, she stressed, recalling that in January she had launched a ‘strategic dialogue’ with the sector on future prospects.
The President of the Commission indicated that the report to be produced by the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of Agriculture in the EU would be presented by the end of the summer. The results and recommendations of this dialogue will be discussed in Parliament and with the Member States and “will form the basis of our future agricultural policy”, she concluded.
Political groups divided. Manfred Weber (EPP, German) thanked the President of the Commission for her message to the farmers. He recalled that his group had called for farmers to be taken seriously. We will remain the farmers’ party, he said.
Iratxe García (S&D, Spanish) recalled that the EPP group had voted in favour of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and criticised the group for exploiting the suffering of farmers to serve its own (electoral) interests.
Speaking to the press, Raphaël Glucksmann (S&D, French) said that the current CAP “ increases inequalities within the agricultural world and subsidises the hectare and production rather than employment and ecological benefits”.
The current CAP is not sustainable, according to the Co-President of the Greens/EFA group, Terry Reintke (German). The group’s other Co-President, Philippe Lamberts, criticised in front of the press, “the disinformation and the totally false slogans being put out by the populists”. He said that criticism of the European Green Deal and the fact that the Commission had withdrawn the proposal on pesticides was absurd. For Mr Lamberts, farmers are being crushed by an economic system that allows them no profit and no freedom, and which gives power to the big agrochemical companies.
Valérie Hayer (Renew Europe, French) claimed that farmers should be able to “make a living from their activities without suffocating under red tape”.
In the area of free trade agreements, many MEPs, like Mr Glucksmann, have stressed that allowing products that do not meet the same standards as European products has the effect of “killing our producers” in the EU. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur, with the editorial staff)