MEPs reject key text of the European Union’s Green Deal

“It’s certain, there will be no pesticide regulations under this mandate,” commented Pascal Canfin, president of the parliamentary Environment committee, on Wednesday.

On Wednesday November 22, the European Parliament rejected legislation aimed at halving the use of pesticides in the EU. This buries this key environmental text castigated by conservative elected officials a few months before the June 2024 elections. This legislative project, proposed in June 2022 by the Commission, planned to halve by 2030 the use and risks to EU level of chemical plant protection products, compared to the period 2015-2017.

Parliament’s main force, the PPE group (right) passed amendments aimed at considerably weakening the text. This was in turn rejected in a final vote by 299 votes (207 for, 121 abstentions) by MEPs meeting in plenary. The elected representatives of the left (socialists, Greens, radical left) refused to endorse a result that was too watered down, in unison with some of the elected representatives of Renew (liberals).

The MEPs then refused, in another very close vote, any referral to the parliamentary committee. This puts an end to the future of the legislative project, especially as the text deeply divides member states. Agriculture ministers can, theoretically, continue to examine the text and adopt a position with a view to a second passage through Parliament. The Commission has the possibility of submitting a new version. But these scenarios seem very unlikely as the elections approach.

“A black day”, according to the Greens

“It’s certain, there will be no pesticide regulations under this mandate”commented Pascal Canfin, president (Renew) of the parliamentary Environment committee. “It remains to be seen what the Council [les Etats] will do”but even if he adopted a position, “the procedure [au Parlement] will continue during the next legislature” because “time is running out”.

For the Greens, Parliament has indeed “buried” regulations. “It’s a dark day for the environment and farmers”, immediately reacted the rapporteur of the text, the Austrian ecologist Sarah Wiener. She justified the Greens’ decision to reject the text: “Without binding rules on pest treatments and in the absence of controls, it is greenwashing. We could not vote in conscience for such a text.”