Press releases
Today, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food will present a report[1] before the UN Human Rights Council on the many issues posed by pesticides. Inefficient to guarantee food safety, toxic to human health and the environment, it is part of an agricultural model that is outdated and benefits only to multinationals and trade while EU farmers struggle to survive
Today, 12 years have passed since the Regulation on pesticide residues in food (Reg. 396/2005) was adopted and Commission, Council and EU parliament jointly decided that the harmful effects of mixtures of pesticide residues in food have to be taken into account in standard setting (Art.14.2[1]). Food Authority EFSA was assigned to develop the methods to assess mixture effects, but up to this day these methods are not published and mixture effects not taken into account. Current EU food standards for pesticide residues therefore are not safe.
Today (15 january) and tomorrow, Luxembourg will be the field of a battle opposing Bayer and Syngenta against the European Commission on the 2013 ban on neonicotinoids. The pesticide companies are attacking the decision from the Commission to protect bees by restricting the uses of imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
“Campaigners and activists are meeting today in Brussels and other cities all across Europe (Madrid, Rome, Berlin and Paris) to launch a European Citizens Initiative (ECI) in order to put pressure on the EU to ban glyphosate, reform the EU pesticide approval process and set mandatory targets to reduce pesticide use in the EU. The main target is to collect at least one million signatures from Europeans and submit the petition before the Commission's next move to renew, withdraw or extend the EU licence of glyphosate.
The provision of false or incomplete information is a very common tactic the industry makes use of in order to cast doubt among decision makers[1]. After the November 2016 publication of 2 new EFSA reports reiterating the high risk of neonicotinoids on bees, the pesticide industry and industrial farming lobby are doubling their efforts to influence decision-makers and increase pressure on the European Commission to maintain their products on the market.
The substitution of animal testing of chemicals by non-animal testing prediction systems (NATPS) could lead to large-scale misuse of these systems, the new PAN Europe report "AOP, the trojan horse for industry lobby tools?" warns. The still immature NATPS were originally intended for chemicals in cosmetics where animal testing is banned.
Happy birthday! But, again, no gift!! The European Commission is two years late in delivering a simple report, failing to ensure implementation of the Sustainable Use Directive on Pesticides.
In observation of World Soil Day, today December 5th, 2016, Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN Europe) stands in solidarity with the #People4Soil campaign and 430 other organisations to extend important protections to our soil.
Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN Europe) has welcomed the European Commission's intention to proceed with its proposal to ban the use of pesticides in productive Ecological Focus Areas (EFA) as soon as possible and in time for the 2017/18 planting season at the latest. The proposal is being made in the context of the simplification of the 2013 CAP reform based on experience to date.
Today, the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) has organised a conference in the European Parliament on the importance of pesticides in EU agriculture. The fallacious century-old “we need to feed the world” argument is still regularly claimed by the pesticide industry to support a model that is a dead end: low-efficiency, high health costs, low employment rate, high environmental impacts. The real inconvenient truth is the conventional agriculture model has failed in Europe.
