At the Agriculture Council in Luxembourg on Tuesday 24 June, France and other countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Spain and Austria) welcomed the European Commission’s plans to harmonise production standards for imported products, particularly regarding pesticide residues.
Annie Genevard, the French minister of agriculture and food sovereignty, pointed out that the European Commission is committed, in its ‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’, to presenting an impact study in 2025 with a view to revising Regulation 396/2005 on maximum residue levels (MRLs) (see EUROPE 13583/5).
According to the minister, we need to go “further and faster”. Inconsistencies in 20-year-old legislation currently allow products containing residues of substances whose use is banned in the EU to enter the European market.
These countries are calling on the Commission to launch an ambitious review of the regulation by the end of 2025, including a reduction in MRLs to the detection threshold when an active substance is no longer approved in the European Union.
The European ministers acknowledged that further explanation to the EU’s trading partners was necessary to demonstrate that this approach is fully justified by the objectives of protecting public health and the environment, and that it remains compatible with WTO rules.
The Commission “will examine in 2025 the possibilities of implementing this principle” of reducing MRLs to the detection limit for active substances banned in the EU, promised Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare Olivér Várhelyi.
See the document: https://aeur.eu/f/hj4 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)