Under the agreement reached on 17 December, EU agriculture ministers agreed that national authorities should be allowed to designate 'appropriately-sized' buffer zones around bodies of water where pesticide use is prohibited.
Ministers also voted in favour of a ban on aerial pesticide spraying, with certain derogations for Bulgaria and Romania, where geological and climatic conditions apparently leave few alternatives to aerial spraying.
But the Council did not take on board a number of stricter measures to restrict pesticide use as advocated by the Parliament during its first reading vote on 23 October, ENDS Europe reported.
In particular, ministers rejected EP calls for national reduction targets to halve the use of high risk and highly toxic pesticide by 2013, according to one stakeholder group close to the discussions.
Concerning the use of pesticides in certain public areas like parks and playgrounds, ministers backed the wording of the original Commission proposal for a framework directive, which says that the use of pesticides in sensitive areas "shall be prohibited or restricted to the minimum necessary".
Details of the Council's vote have not been officially made available for public scrutiny, and there have been conflicting reports about the outcome of the vote, with Europolitics reporting that the Council essentially backed the Parliament's call for national use reduction targets.
The Council's press service told EurActiv that the content of the political agreement will only be made public in January when a common position is finalised and sent to the Parliament for a second reading.
Elliott Cannell of the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe told EurActiv that the Portuguese were intent on reaching an agreement on the pesticides file before the end of their EU Presidency, and that the only way to reach a swift deal among ministers was to water down the Parliament's first reading.
Cannell speculates that not publishing the outcome of the vote until January may be an attempt to 'bury' the file in the run-up to the Christmas holidays in order to avoid unfavourable reactions by the Parliament and green groups.
The Commission is scheduled to present the outcome of the Agriculture Council vote on pesticides to environment ministers during their meeting on 20 December in Luxembourg. It remains unclear if the Commission's presentation will be made public.
