Parliament in search of compromise on pesticides

Danish Socialist MEP Dan Jørgensen said he was very positive about striking a "good compromise" on the pesticides package in due time. He said the Parliament's environment (ENVI) committee would present a compromise amendment on the mutual recognition of products in a couple of weeks' time. "We accept mutual recognition of products if member states can still conduct extra checks on the substances during some 180 days," he said, offering a glimpse of the planned compromise proposal. 

As for the cut-off criteria, the Parliament's rapporteur on the new regulation on pesticides, German Green MEP Hiltrud Breyer, argued that they should stay as they are, calling on industry to stop provoking a "hypocritical and ridiculous debate" on their effect on food prices. She argued that recent industry-funded studies used "exaggerated" figures to create a climate of panic. 

"The substitution principle means that there will be new products on the market to replace the banned ones," she underlined, calling for industry to "be honest, fair and sincere" and to analyse its figures sincereley so that "we can start discussing". She also asked industry to admit that their studies were "based on wrong criteria" and were presented to kill the cut-off criteria.

However, Peter Chapman of the UK Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD) deplored the fact that the study had been accused of "scaremongering" and underlined that "if we finalise a regulation, we need to understand and calculate its full impact." He nevertheless acknowledged that the PSD impact assessment was "indicative".

Friedhelm Schmider, director general  of the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA)  added that the PSD impact assessment was necessary because the "Commission never did an impact assessment considering the cut-off criteria. The PSD impact assessment was done after the first reading of the Parliament and no doubt the figures are right in the sense that if all that were in place tomorrow, it would have a tremendous effect," he added. 

Dino Sozzi of Syngenta, also speaking on behalf of ECPA, underlined the industry's progress on R&D and renewed products but stressed that substitution of banned substances would take time as "it takes up to 10-12 years of research to get a new molecule on the market". Regarding the proposed zonal authorisation system, which would introduce mutual recognition of products in defined geographical areas, Sozzi argued that one zone would be "a very good and strong idea" and would "make everybody's (farmers, industry, policymakers) lives easier".

Elliot Cannell from PAN Europe (Pesticide Action Network International), argued that a zonal authorisation system could make the number of authorised pesticides double or triple in any given country, even though there would not be any data or scientific evidence proving their regional suitability. He also criticised a compromise between member states allowing for exceptional five-year authorisations of hazardous substances in case of serious risk to plant health. 

According to European Commission official Wolfgang Reinert, the EU executive's impact assessment showed that the proposed rlegislation could lead to a ban of 22-27 carcino-, muta- and teratogenic substances, as well as endocrine disrupting ones. He also noted that the Council's current amendments propose regular approval of the substances if exposure is negligible and exceptional approval (for five years) if there are serious risks to plant health. He also said that most substances would anyhow continue to be available until around 2016. 

Paul Temple, vice president of National Farmers' Union of England and Wales (NFU) argued that pesticide-free organic farming was a life-style option and not a serious means of feeding the world.

Pieter de Pous of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) said he regretted that the issues of soil and water quality and biodiversity, which are essential for true long-term security of food supply in the agricultural sector, were missing from the debates on pesticides as well as from those on the future of CAP and biofuels. "We need to keep the water clean and ensure there is enough of it and our soil fertile. Agriculture nowadays seems to be only about food prices," he lamented, urging the audience to not to forget the environmental crisis. 

Meanwhile, Kevin Parris, of the OECD's trade and agriculture directorate, said talking about the sustainability of European agriculture was difficult, as the market was "distorted" due to too much support for the sector.