Member states slam Commission’s plans to slash pesticide use

EU member states have called for a new impact assessment on the European Commission’s proposal to slash the use and risk of pesticides, citing concerns over food security and resilience, but the EU executive has stood firm in its convictions.

Under the proposal on the sustainable use of pesticides regulation unveiled back in June after a series of setbacks, member states will be asked to set their own national reduction targets within defined parameters. 

Together, the targets are designed to add up to an EU-wide ambition to see the use and risk of pesticides halved by 2030, as set out in the Commission’s flagship food policy, the Farm to Fork strategy.

In August, the Commission sent the outcome of an exercise on the expected national contributions to the EU’s legally binding reduction target to the EU capitals.

The exercise applied the formula and the parameters included in the annex of the current proposal. However, the final result shocked some EU countries, with some supposed to face cuts of over 60% in order to reach the EU overall target.

While the EU executive already carried out an impact assessment of the proposal prior to the war, member states are now arguing this is now obsolete in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has sent shockwaves through the global food chain. 

“For the sake of the quality of legislation, I ask the European Commission to carry out a new reliable impact assessment, taking into account the effects of war in Ukraine, and to re-examine the proposed legal solutions,” Polish secretary of state, Ryszard Bartosik, explained during the meeting, stressing the emphasis should be on “ensur[ing] food security of EU citizens and preserving food sovereignty.”

A number of other member states rallied around Poland’s call, including the likes of Hungary, Austria, Spain, and Romania, the latter of which pointed out that the EU cannot afford to reduce productivity in the current context.

“A simple mathematical solution cannot solve all the problems we now have in farming,” Romanian agriculture minister Petre Daea warned referring to the contested formula.

According to him, it is crucial to provide farmers with alternatives beyond the administrative level, since without farmers there would be no food,” Daea warned. 

The concerns echo those heard recently in the European Parliament’s agriculture committee (AGRI), where MEPs criticised the fact that a proposal given by the Commission on its impact assessment failed to mention food security. 

MEPs slam Commission on food security impact of reducing pesticides

Lawmakers and stakeholders have criticised the European Commission for not placing enough emphasis on the potential impact of its proposal to halve both the use and risk of chemical pesticides by 2030 on food production. 

One notable exception was German agriculture minister Cem Özdemir, who expressed his support for the Commission’s plans. 

“The efforts to harmonise the legal framework on the use of plant protection products is important. That’s why we are much very much in favour of binding reduction goals,” he said.

Calling the current impact assessment “sufficient”, Özdemir placed himself firmly against the idea of a further impact assessment. 

Facing down the backlash, food safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides refused to budge on national pesticide reduction targets, justifying it as the will of the people. 

“Let us not forget: ambition to reduce chemicals in food is what our citizens want. This is what we need to deliver on. And this is what we set out to achieve with our proposal,” she said.

As such, she called on member states to “contribute targets and maintain this ambition,” arguing that the Commission’s proposal factors in flexibility based on “both historical progress and agricultural intensity of use.”

“We believe this is an equitable approach that allows to take into account different starting points and avoids great variations from the 50% target starting point,” she said, maintaining that the EU executive has not put ‘take it or leave it’ proposals on the table. 

“We are listening, and we are ready to work with you to find workable compromises,” she said, pegging factors such as climate change, biodiversity loss and fewer pollinators alongside the Ukraine war as an “equally urgent” threat to food security.

[Edited by Gerardo Fortuna/Nathalie Weatherald]

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