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 “Abeilles et pesticides : le Parlement européen recadre la Commission”. All quotes, originally in French, were translated by me.
The author recalls the opinion of EFSA of 2012 (Boesten et al. 2012), the development of the guide document in 2013, then its study by SCOPAFF and resistance from member states. In the end, the Commission adopted a text (already mentioned) ignoring most of the recommendations made by EFSA in 2013.
On October 23, the European Parliament “adopted by an overwhelming majority (533 for, 67 against and 100 abstentions) an objection to the reform of the principles of environmental risk assessment of plant protection products. “
Lithuanian Vytenis Andriukaitis, “European Commissioner responsible for health and food safety issues,” said the vote was “not good news for bees”, as the reform did not lower the level of protection. They returned “to square one”.
NGOs, on the contrary, welcome the parliamentarians’ resolution:
“MEPs have taken the measure of the scandal that is playing out around the approval of pesticides,” says Nicolas Laarman, general delegate of the Pollinis association. Agrochemicals, with the complicity of Member States and the European Commission, tries to deprive us of the only scientific tool that would make it possible to halt the decline of pollinators in Europe. The French national beekeeping union (UNAF) also welcomes the motion, citing “immense relief”.
According to a representative of Greenpeace, this would show that the Parliament “takes seriously the protection of endangered European pollinators”.