At the ‘Agriculture’ Council on Monday 17 November, several Member States - including Italy, France, Ireland, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary - called on the European Commission to take action to facilitate the use of plant protection products and improve their availability on the market.
Olivér Várhelyi, European Commissioner for Health, has stressed that the simplification package for food and feed safety legislation will make “targeted amendments” to better address current and future concerns (see EUROPE 13753/4).
Firstly, the package will include practical measures to improve the assessment of the availability of alternatives “to prevent substances from being phased out when equally available, accessible, and efficient alternatives are not available”, said the Commissioner. Secondly, it will enshrine the principle that, for the most dangerous pesticides, what is banned in the EU remains banned in the EU. According to Olivér Várhelyi, these changes will help European farmers and the competent authorities to better protect the Union against harmful organisms while maintaining high safety standards for consumers and the environment. The proposal should be adopted before the end of the year, he confirmed. The date of 16 December has been mentioned.
Italy and France have criticised a lack of harmonisation in the authorisation procedures for plant protection products. The French delegation called for a move towards “a European authorisation system” for placing products on the market, along the lines of what exists for veterinary medicines and biocides. It also called for import rules to better reflect the authorisation and prohibition regime in force in the EU, and for controls to be stepped up with “a European force” dedicated to inspecting products entering the EU.
The Italian Minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, who sent a note (https://aeur.eu/f/jig ) on the subject, believes that legislative intervention is necessary so that a plant protection product authorised in an emergency situation in one Member State can be used under simplified procedures to respond to the same emergency in another Member State with comparable agricultural, climatic and environmental conditions. This position was supported in particular by Croatia and Poland.
Belgium, for its part, has called for the procedures for placing new products on the market to be speeded up.
NGO concerns. According to PAN Europe, a draft of the ‘omnibus’ text shows that the European Commission is seeking to “deregulate all chemical pesticides”. The NGO claims that this move, which “comes under the guise of ‘simplification’, intended to facilitate access to the market for safer bio-pesticides”, would risk granting unlimited European approval to active substances while removing the obligation for Member States to take into account the most recent independent scientific data when granting national authorisations. According to PAN Europe, the draft ‘omnibus’ regulation, currently undergoing inter-service consultation until 24 November, contains a series of amendments that would weaken Regulation 1107/2009 (the placing of plant protection products on the market).
According to French MEP Christophe Clergeau (S&D), Oliver Várhelyi is seeking to “call into question the principle of periodic renewal of pesticide authorisations”. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)