Conservative MEPs who attempted to stand in the way of EU plans to ban neonicotinoid pesticides have seen their amendments defeated in the EU Parliament Environment Committee.

The proposed restrictions build on the 2013 ‘Partial ban’ on three neonicotinoid pesticides, which was introduced in light of evidence of their effects on bee health; in 2013, the UK government attempted to derail the restrictions, and publicly refuted the science behind the ban. In 2016, EU health watchdog EFSA found that use of neonicotinoids on all crops poses a risk to bees, leading the Commission to propose a full ban on all uses except in greenhouses.

In their 2017 Manifesto, the Conservatives pledge “to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it” and newly appointed environment secretary Michael Gove said just this week that he does not intend to weaken EU environmental regulation during his tenure at Defra.

Conservative MEP Julie Girling, who championed the amendments, said the Commission’s plan is not supported by sufficient scientific and legal evidence. However, she came in for criticism from pesticide campaigners, who pointed out that her arguments against the Commission’s proposed measures were no different from those put forward by the pesticide industry itself. In March this year, a major report prepared for the UN Council on Human Rights took aim at neonicotinoids and criticised the agri-chemical corporations that manufacture pesticides, accusing them of “systematic denial of harms”, “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics” and heavy lobbying of governments which has “obstructed reforms and paralysed global pesticide restrictions”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/22/tories-aim-block-full-eu-ban-bee-harming-pesticides

In a debate in the Environment Committee on Wednesday, EU Commission official Klaus Berend said pesticide industry lobby groups and sympathetic MEPs had missed the point in their insistence that the link between neonicotinoid use and bee decline be proven absolutely; Berend said, “The principle of the regulation is that safe use must be demonstrated, not the other way around…. There is no other choice for the commission than to act.”

In voting in the Envi Committee on Thursday morning, three amendments tabled by Conservative MEPs were heavily defeated, meaning they won’t be going through to be voted on by the whole Parliament in the next plenary session. The amendments were defeated by 43 votes against to 8 for.

 Commenting on Thursday, Matt Shardlow, chief executive of insect charity Buglife said, “Neonicotinoids are now known to persist in agricultural soils and get into field margin flowers and subsequent crops where they are ingested by visiting pollinators, there is also evidence that they concentrate in the surface of fields and the dust disturbed by cultivation, or produced during planting, contains levels of neonicotinoids that are toxic to bees and other wildlife. 

“It is reassuring that the EC and EU Parliament are taking a firm line in support of the expert judgement of EFSA and we hope that Michael Gove and Defra can modernise the UK’s approach to pesticide regulation prior to Brexit so that the public and the environment are clearly protected from the repetition of calamities such as the destruction of UK wild bee populations by neonicotinoids.”