The platform also includes important principles regarding Europe’s relation with developing countries. Several of the platform elements have since been refined and expanded into our PURE campaign.

The long-term aim of PAN Europe is to eliminate dependency on chemical pesticides and support safe sustainable pest control methods. As an interim goal, PAN Europe is committed to bringing about a substantial reduction in pesticide use throughout Europe. Pesticide (including biocides) reduction is a prerequisite for improvements of public and workers health, protection of the environment, and its strict implementation is in line with the precautionary principle.

PAN Europe therefore calls on the European Union to make good its promise by taking - as a minimum - the following steps:

1. Require all EU Member States to establish pesticide reduction programmes within five years, with specific numerical targets designed to achieve qualitative and quantitative reductions in pesticide use.
2. Make pesticide reduction a specific environmental condition for farmers receiving payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as proposed under the "cross-compliance" measures of Agenda 2000.
3. When evaluating pesticides, including for the regulatory authorisation processes:
   • ensure greater transparency and consultation with public interest groups;
   • take action to address data gaps, combination effects, newly recognised effects like endocrine disrupting potential and immunotoxicity, and include cut-off values for intrinsic properties (such as toxicity, bioaccumulation, and persistence);
   • include a provisional approval and the evaluation of "inert" ingredients in pesticide products;
   • extend the comparative assessment of pesticides and the substitution principle to 91/414/EC.
4. Preserve the legal framework for pesticide reduction that already exists under Directive 76/464/EEC (Dangerous substances into the Aquatic Environment) and Directive 80/68/EEC (Groundwater), by preventing their repeal under the proposed Water Framework Directive, until equivalent groundwater and surface water protection measures have been implemented by Member States.
5. Develop principles for Good Plant Protection Practice (including IPM) using PARCOM Recommendation 94/7 as a starting point.
6. Establish specific policies and support to bring 15% of all cultivated land under organic production (as defined by IFOAM) by the year 2005, and 30% by the year 2010.
7. Bring the EU pesticide levels in all food and animal feed in line with the more stringent measures recently adopted for baby food, and with the limit values for drinking water (80/778/EEC).
8. Enact a 5-year EU-wide moratorium on scientific and commercial release and import of genetically modified crops.
9. Phase out by 2020 the production and use of chemicals that affect the endocrine system and set a clear timetable prioritising action on most harmful chemicals, taking into account the need to protect vulnerable groups.
10. Establish national and Europe-wide mandatory and publicly available inventories as a basis for action, including:
    • pesticide product registers;
    • inventories of pesticide use by area and crop;
    • monitoring and surveillance of pesticide poisoning and pollution incidence reporting (both agricultural and non-agricultural).

Global Responsibility

PAN Europe calls on the EU to take the following steps to meet its global responsibility, and its regional responsibility for Central and Eastern European countries:

1. Ensure that aid to developing countries and countries in transition supports farmer-participatory organic or Integrated Pest Management training rather than pesticide use and intensive agricultural development, with a target of 75% of aid for agriculture supporting such programmes by 2005 (with the remaining 25% supporting development of sustainable rural livelihoods).
2. Increase the effectiveness of the Rotterdam Convention by ensuring access to information on exports of active ingredients from the EU and by expanding the number of substances on the PIC list, e.g., through assistance to developing countries for identification of "severely hazardous pesticide formulations" and through inclusion of groups of substances on the basis of intrinsic properties (such as toxicity, bioaccumulation and persistence).
3. Lead global action to clear and dispose safely of stocks of hazardous and obsolete pesticides in developing countries and European countries with economies in transition, including enforcing industry responsibility, with the objective of clearing all stocks by 2010, and assisting countries to develop the capacity to prevent future problems.