EU Ministers debate agrochemicals
Date:01-04-2008
EU Agriculture Ministers agreed on the European Commission's proposals for a thematic strategy on sustainable pesticide use at the EU Agriculture Council meeting in December. At their first reading of the proposals, Ministers supported the Commission's main measures to reduce the environmental and health impacts of pesticide use, but details of the agreed text have yet to be issued. Statements on the common position reached by the Council will be issued "in the coming weeks", a Council spokesperson said. The documents will form the basis of the second reading of the proposals by the European Parliament and Ministers.
The proposed measures include: a ban on aerial spraying, except in "special cases"; national action plans to reduce pesticide use; regular inspection of application equipment; use of harmonised indicators to measure the progress in risk reduction; and the establishment of an information exchange system on best practices. At the Council meeting, the Commission highlighted problems encountered by Bulgaria and Romania in finding alternatives to aerial spraying. Geographical and climatic factors make it practically impossible to carry out pesticide spraying other than by aerial means, it said.
The strategy will be implemented by a pesticides framework directive. The European Parliament completed its first reading of the draft directive in October. It also supported the main themes of the Commission's proposals. While the Parliament sought to strengthen measures in some areas, it rejected calls from its Environment Committee for quantitative use-reduction targets and specific buffer zone widths next to water courses.
In addition to the strategy, EU Agriculture Ministers discussed the Commission's draft regulation that will amend the EU agrochemical registration Directive (91/414). Ministers "took note" of comments made by some delegations, but did not reach a conclusion on the proposals. Due to the -important number of amendments proposed by the Parliament" at its first reading in October, it will take "some more time" to reach a common position, the Council representative says. Slovenia, which has taken over the EU presidency for the next six months, is aiming for an agreement in the first quarter of 2008.
The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) is urging Ministers to amend the draft regulation, which it says could leave farmers with few solutions for protecting important crops. In particular, it calls on Ministers to decide against the use of hazard-based criteria in the registration of active ingredients. The industry has already expressed grave concern about the Commission's proposals on hazard criteria and the Parliament's vote to extend the range of criteria used (Agrow ibid). The Parliament's amendments could lead to a loss of 80% of insecticides and 70% of fungicides, the ECPA warns.
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