Brussels, 18/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - On the fringes of the Agriculture Council on Monday afternoon in Brussels, the Committee of Agricultural Organisations in the European Union (COPA) and the General Committee for Agricultural Co-operation in the European Union (COGECA) organised a demonstration of European beekeepers who wanted to express their concern that the profession might "disintegrate". Beekeeper representatives met the acting President of the Council, the Spanish agriculture minister Miguel Arias Canete, while in the afternoon he Luxembourg Agriculture Minister (with the support of France and Belgium) was going to ask Commissioner Franz Fischler to continue to look at the problems the sector if facing (environmental problems and lack of young people coming into the profession).
To ensure that beekeeping remains viable and does not disappear from the EU, the beekeepers want the scope of regulation 1221/97 on improving honey production and marketing to be amended to remunerate the environmental services provided by the bee-keeping sector (pollinating activity); entirely finance expenses payable under the regulation (on the basis of the current total, EUR 33 million); prepare interpretation guidelines for the regulation; revise the authorisation procedure for plant health products to take better account of their impact on bees; secure the viability of beekeeping farms by offsetting income losses caused by market disparities (resulting from the non-existence of Community preference in the sector); integrating European honey into EU policy for promoting high quality products, and creating a chapter for bee diseases in the European Veterinary Fund.
The future of beekeeping in the EU is very uncertain given the disappearance of a large proportion of the bee population, poisoned by pesticides and herbicides, and the huge difference between the prices of imported honey compared with EU honey (average EUR 1.11/kg versus EUR 2.05/kg). The farming associations point out that "Under these conditions, nobody is attracted to bee-keeping activity any more, despite the fact that European production does not cover more than 50% of our demand".