The controversial proposal to reduce the use of pesticides in Europe by half, one of the star measures of the Green Deal, is history. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced today in Strasbourg that she is going to propose to her team the withdrawal of this initiative in view of its “polarizing” effect and the lack of progress in the legislative process. Last year the European Parliament rejected the proposal by surprise, which has not been well received in the Council, the institution where the Governments sit, very sensitive to the social tensions that have been occurring in the last year and a half in the agricultural sector. .
The initiative was stalled and it was clearly impossible for it to move forward in this legislature, so the transfer is above all a political and symbolic gesture. “The Commission proposed SUR (Sustainable Use Regulation of Pesticides) with the laudable objective of reducing the risks of plant protection chemicals. But the proposal has become a symbol of polarization,” admitted Von der Leyen in a speech before the European Parliament full of winks and words of recognition to European farmers, on a war footing in different countries of the Union and with Brussels in the spotlight as the origin of many of the initiatives that, they claim, are doing more and more their work unsustainable. The proposal on pesticides, which proposed not only reducing their use but also removing the most dangerous ones by 2030, had been criticized by representatives of the agricultural sector and the Twenty-Seven from a technical point of view due to the lack of prior impact analysis.
Von der Leyen has promised to involve the sector in the design of a new proposal, a mission that will fall to the next Commission, after the European elections in June. “To move forward, more dialogue and a different approach are necessary and, on that basis, the Commission will present a new, much more mature proposal with the involvement of the affected actors,” he promised. Last week, the president of the Commission inaugurated a “structured dialogue” with representatives of the agricultural sector, a forum in which this and other issues will be addressed and from which a report with proposals will emerge after the summer. “Only if we achieve our climate and environmental goals together will farmers be able to continue earning a living,” said Von der Leyen a few days before she is expected to announce her desire to run for a second term as president of the Commission and be the candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP), which is running in the European elections as “the party of the countryside”.
The withdrawal of the proposal to reduce the use of pesticides is the first major defeat of the European Green Deal, the set of environmental legislation promoted during the current legislature, but not the only example of relaxation of the original objectives, as seen with the law of nature restoration, which despite the resistance of the European People’s Party was approved but with a less ambitious approach than initially proposed. Today the European Commission will present its latest major proposal within the framework of the Green Deal on reducing emissions by 2040 without cutting targets for the agricultural sector, which were included in the first drafts of the plan.
In parallel, in light of the expansion of protests in the agricultural sector throughout Europe, the community executive announced last week the suspension of the obligation to leave part of arable land fallow and authorized safeguard measures to protect farmers. Eastern farmers from Ukraine competition. With the aim of helping the country maintain its economy and help global food security, at the beginning of the war the ‘solidarity corridors’ were opened that allow cereals and other agri-food products to enter the European Union free of tariffs. with a view to export to third countries, but in some cases the result has depressed prices in some Community markets.
