A heavy blow to one of the pillars of the European green agenda. The much-publicized 50% discount pesticide in the EU The proposal to protect the health of citizens was rejected by the European Parliament, which presented the proposal for discussion a few days ago. The law received 299 votes against and 207 votes in favour, while 121 MPs abstained.
“This is a very dark day for public health. For the environment as a whole and also for the liberation of farmers from agribusiness,” said Austrian environmentalist parliamentarian Sarah Wiener.
According to Efe, the MP asked for a vote to return the legislative project to the Parliamentary Environment Commission for re-evaluation, but the MPs also rejected this possibility.
Defeat of this proposal will now force you to start almost from scratch. At a press conference after the vote, Wiener stated that the legislative project was “dead” in the current European legislature and that it was “very unlikely” to be implemented before the 2024 European Parliament elections.
The original legislative initiative presented by the European Commission (EC) in June last year. Set legally binding targets at national and EU level to reduce pesticide use and risk by 50% Use of chemicals and the most dangerous pesticides by 2030.
Under the EC plan, Member States will set their own national reduction targets within certain parameters to ensure that EU-wide targets are met.
Differences Between Environment and Agriculture
However, the proposal went through a complicated parliamentary process due to differences of opinion between left and right parties. The European Parliament’s Environment and Agriculture committees have different perspectives on the issue.
While the Environment Commission emphasized the protection of nature and health by adhering to ambitious targets such as reducing the use of pesticides, the Agriculture Commission pointed out the impact the law could have on food safety and warned that it was still not at a sufficient level. Alternatives to chemical pesticides.
The procedure in the Council of the EU (Member States), which is the legislative body of the Community club together with the European Parliament, has also not been without problems.
Last December, these countries requested an additional impact analysis from the European Commission; because the Community Administration did not take into account the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on agriculture when presenting the proposal.
In July this year, Brussels published this additional assessment, which reassured that the law would not put food security at risk, even taking into account the agricultural consequences of the war conflict in Ukraine.
“On the contrary, failure to meet the pesticide reduction target is currently will have long-term and potentially irreversible impacts on food security.” in the future.
Following this response, discussions between the countries continued as one of the priorities of the Spanish presidency in recent months.
Even at the EU Agriculture Ministers meeting held recently in Brussels, many countries expressed reservations about the legislative project.
German President Cem Özdemir, on the other hand, expressed his opinion that he agreed with the general target of reducing pesticide use by 50 percent by 2030.commitment to the Commission’s “strategy” to achieve this.
His Finnish counterpart, Sari Essayah, expressed opposition to setting national targets for each EU Member State because “too many pesticides” are not used in her country. Therefore, she thought it would be “very unfair” to set national targets for countries that already use small amounts of these chemicals.
……………………
Contact address of the environmental department:[email protected]