The umbrella association of EU farm organisations and co-ops has called for MEPs on the European Parliament’s environment committee to take a “balanced” vote on the use of pesticides.
The environment committee is set to vote to adopt its opinion on revisions to the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR) for plant protection products (PPP), which includes pesticides.
The European Commission presented its plan to revise the SUR in June of 2022.
The parliament’s agriculture and rural development committee had its say on the planned revision on Monday of this week (October 9), with Copa Cogeca, the EU farm and co-op organisation, calling on the environment committee to take a similar approach.
Copa said that the agriculture committee’s vote represented a balanced opinion, and that the environment committee should take it into account.
The agriculture committee voted 26 votes to nine (with three abstentions) in favour of a compromise position on the SUR revision, which Copa said is “acceptable”.
Copa said: “After more than two and a half hours of voting, the committee members attempted to give substantive clarity to the inspirational and vague proposal that the commission had presented in June 2022.
“In particular, the committee’s vote clarifies three key points for the farming community in relation to the commission’s basic text.”
The first of these three points highlighted by Copa relates to the implementation period for the revised SUR – which the agriculture committee wants to see extended to 2035 – and the methodology for national calculations of PPP use, which, in the committee’s opinion, would allow for readjustment of targets based on PPP availability for farmers.
The second point relates to PPP use on environmentally sensitive areas, which the committee wants to see restricted rather than banned outright. The committee is also calling for member states to be allowed define these sensitive areas themselves (but with commission approval).
The third point relates to funding for the implementation of a revised SUR, with the committee adamant that this funding should not be drawn from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Copa said: “As with other Farm to Fork initiatives, the commission did not take the time to assess costs properly and who should pay for the transition, a situation that the MEPs on the agri committee did not find acceptable. We understand and welcome their rejection.
“The environment committee, which has most of the competence on this dossier, must rely on the work of the agriculture committee so that the proposal to be put to the [full European Parliament] session can offer a minimum of clarity and understanding, which is still far from being the case at this stage,” the organisation added.