In the dispute over a significant reduction in the use of pesticides in European agriculture, MEP Sarah Wiener is pushing for much stricter rules. This emerges from a draft report by the Austrian, which is available to the German Press Agency and which the responsible parliamentary committee must vote on. The report is to be officially presented on Thursday.
In it, the Green politician responsible for the topic in the European Parliament proposes, among other things, more taxes on pesticides, a greater reduction in particularly dangerous pesticides and compromises in the total ban on chemicals in very sensitive areas. Among other things, there should be exceptions for organic pesticides.
In the summer, the EU Commission presented a legislative proposal that would, among other things, halve the use of pesticides by 2030. The basis for the value should therefore be the average quantity sold in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Reduce hazardous pesticides by 80 percent
Wiener now wants to tighten things up: For particularly dangerous pesticides, she advocates a reduction of 80 percent by 2030. In addition, according to the report by the former TV chef, the EU Commission should work out a tax for the chemicals, the amount of which should depend on the risks of their use.
Wiener now has to find a majority in the environmental committee for her report. The plenary session of the EU Parliament must then also vote on it before negotiations with the EU states can begin.
In view of the planned tightening, there has already been resistance from agriculture and other political camps. Lower Saxony’s then Minister of Agriculture, Barbara Otte-Kinast (CDU), said after the Commission presented the plans that they meant the end for many farms in Lower Saxony. Lower Saxony’s farmers’ association said that the EU Commission’s plans endangered the secure supply of food to consumers.
The EU Commission, on the other hand, sees a risk to food security in the previous use of the chemicals. “Continuing as before endangers natural resources, our health, the climate and the economy,” it said.
