The presentation on Monday 6 July in Strasbourg of the draft report on the package simplifying food safety rules to the European Parliament’s Committees on Agriculture and on the Environment confirmed broad support for the objective of simplifying the rules applicable to plant protection products, but also divergences over the balance between accelerating procedures, innovation and maintaining a high level of health and environmental protection (see EUROPE 13888/17).
The co-rapporteurs, Michele Picaro (ECR, Italian) and Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italian), defended a text aimed at making the European pesticide authorisation system “more effective” by reducing time frames, limiting administrative burdens and facilitating farmers’ access to new crop protection solutions. The main proposals include: stopping ongoing renewal procedures, except where new scientific data emerge; a maximum period of 18 months for assessing authorisation applications; automatic mutual recognition of certain authorisations between Member States sharing the same climatic conditions; and a specific framework for drones and precision farming.
Vasile Dîncu (S&D, Romanian) welcomed the administrative simplification measures and supported mutual recognition of authorisations, as well as the development of precision farming and drones. He also came out in favour of authorisations granted for an indefinite period, provided that they can be reassessed where new scientific data justify this. He called for the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to draw up guidance specifying the criteria applicable to low-risk substances.
MRL. Members of the PfE group supported the main thrust of the draft report while calling for it to go further. Spain’s Mireia Borrás Pabón considered it essential to strengthen the principle of reciprocity as regards imports, ensuring that imported products comply with the same requirements as those imposed on European producers, notably as regards maximum residue levels (MRLs). Anne-Sophie Frigout (PfE, French) called for lowering MRLs for substances banned in the Union to become the rule, with limited exceptions, and considered that the proposals on drones remained insufficiently ambitious in view of the sector’s modernisation needs.
The contributions by members of the Renew Europe group revealed differing sensibilities. Belgium’s Benoît Cassart supported measures intended to accelerate the authorisation of biocontrol products as well as the use of drones. However, he expressed reservations about several provisions which, in his view, go beyond the scope of the proposal presented by the European Commission. He also announced amendments aimed at strengthening the provisions relating to maximum residue levels in order to ensure better consistency between trade, agricultural and environmental policies.
Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (Renew Europe, Dutch) opposed authorisations of unlimited duration for conventional products as well as the extension of derogations based on agroeconomic considerations. Accelerated procedures should primarily benefit biocontrol solutions.
Precautionary principle. For Biljana Borzan (S&D, Croatian), the draft report goes beyond the Commission proposal by calling into question several safeguards underpinning European food safety policy. She criticised authorisations without any time limit, the extension of validity periods for the most concerning substances and the reduction in possibilities for scientific reassessment. In her view, the delays seen in authorisation procedures should be resolved by strengthening the capacities of EFSA and the national authorities rather than by easing scientific requirements.
“I thought that we had all gathered here with the willingness to move away from chemical pesticides, notably thanks to biocontrol, without, however, undermining production capacity. And I can see that this is not the case”, regretted Christophe Clergeau (S&D, French). He criticised the rapporteurs for wanting to go further than the Commission by “granting unlimited authorisations to almost all products and active substances”. For the most dangerous products which the law requires to be replaced, the rapporteurs are proposing to increase the replacement periods from seven to 15 years and to make withdrawal conditional on a socioeconomic and agroeconomic assessment, Mr Clergeau specified.
Anna Strolenberg (Greens/EFA , Dutch) recalled that her group supported the proposals aimed at accelerating the development of biocontrol, but said that the rapporteurs were weakening the safeguards applicable to conventional pesticides. She announced amendments aimed in particular at removing unlimited authorisations, shortening grace periods and creating a regulatory framework specific to biocontrol.
Link to the draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/mre (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)