This page is a part of the corpus (Annexe 1) used to write Stéphane Foucart and neonicotinoids.
Here, I relate what the journalist said in his article « L’Europe et les abeilles ». All quotes, originally in French, were translated by me.
Despite repeated warnings about declining biodiversity, reiterated in an IPBES report on 6 May, EU member states are still struggling to agree on new registration procedures for pesticides. However, the flaws in current methods have been known since the early 2000s and EFSA details them in a 250-page long report published in 2013. (Boesten et al. 2012) S. Foucart recalls some of the said flaws.
EFSA has produced a “guidance document” outlining new accreditation procedures. However, despite 27 changes, the text was not accepted. On May 8, the Commission asked EFSA to “take back the sensitive parts” of the document. The agency is expected to return its copy in 2021.
Blocking Member States would be all the more incomprehensible as the catastrophe was not yet to come, but already there. This is evidenced by the study published in 2017 observing that “the biomass of flying insects has fallen by more than 75% across the Rhine and probably in all European landscapes dominated by human activities”. (Hallman et al. 2017)
It would be all the more difficult to understand if the European rules do not allow to know the details of the discussions or the identity of the states responsible for the blockage. S. Foucart concludes:
“In the end, all the stigma is transferred to the institutions of the Union, and is part of a lack of love that could be seen, this Sunday, at the polls. “