The legislative project aimed at drastically reducing the use of pesticides in the EU took its first step in the European Parliament on Tuesday October 24. The pesticide legislation, proposed in June 2022 by the European Commission, plans to halve by 2030, compared to the period 2015-2017, the use and risks at EU level of products chemical phytosanitary products. This binding objective was included in the text adopted on Tuesday by MEPs from the Environment Committee, by extending the reference period.
This compromise, endorsed by left-wing elected officials and centrists from the Renew group, raises the reduction objective to 65%, by the same deadline, of “most dangerous products”, compared to 50% proposed by Brussels. A target to which the EPP (right) fiercely opposed, in unison with the majority agricultural organizations. In order to promote the use of “substitute components”MEPs also call on the European Commission to set a target for 2030 for increasing sales of “low risk pesticides” and biocontrol products.
Glyphosate stands out
Elected officials want to ban chemical pesticides in “sensitive areas” (urban green spaces, playgrounds and sports grounds, public paths, Natura 2000 protected areas), as well as on a five-meter buffer strip, but they are leaving possibilities of exemptions. Finally, they demand that each State adopt national objectives based on annual sales of pesticides, their level of danger and agricultural area. Brussels will have to check whether these targets are sufficiently ambitious.
On the other hand, a separate symbolic declaration calling for a complete ban on glyphosate was rejected by the parliamentary committee, before a vote of the Twenty-Seven in November on the fate of this herbicide considered to be “probable carcinogen” by the WHO. The text will now be subject to a vote in plenary by all MEPs in November, before future negotiations with the States once they have decided on their position.