News

The journal Environmental Health has published new research by Stockholm University that alleges that some pesticide manufacturers have concealed from European regulators the adverse results of toxicity studies of their pesticides on human health. According to the authors of the research, the manufacturers deliberately provided European authorities with only studies that came out positively in support of the use of the substances in question and withheld studies that suggested possible health risks. Possible risks included changes in brain size, delayed sexual maturation or reduced weight gain in the offspring of lab rats exposed to pesticides. According to Environmental Health, there was an incomplete submission of dossiers for abamectin, ethoprophos, pyridaben and fluazinam, and the allegations involve Bayer and Syngenta, among others. Possible fraud will now be addressed by both the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (COMENVI).
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Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Janusz Wojciechowski could present a Communication on the future CAP after 2027 before the end of this year. Speaking at a conference on agricultural sustainability last week, the Commissioner said that sustainability, providing stronger incentives for the agricultural sector, more strategic policy implementation and strengthening research and smart innovation will be key to the future CAP. Farmers, the Commissioner said, must become the driving force behind sustainable food production, leading progress towards long-term food security. Solidarity with small farmers should be a key point of the new CAP, but also a focus on carbon farming, generational renewal or the long-term development of rural areas.
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Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Janusz Wojciechowski will discuss with Agriculture Ministers on 30/05/2023 during the Council of Ministers the reallocation of the remaining funds from the Agricultural Crisis Reserve. The Agricultural Crisis Reserve amounts to €450 million, after deducting €56 million already paid to Poland, Romania and Bulgaria to compensate for the effects of the war in Ukraine and the related trade liberalisation with Ukraine, and after deducting €100 million pledged (but not yet released due to the Hungarian blockade) for the same reason to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, which currently leaves €294 million in the Crisis Reserve. Some of these remaining funds should go to France (due to the crisis in the wine sector) and Italy (due to adverse weather conditions - drought and flooding), while support for Lithuania and Latvia (due to the crisis in the dairy sector) is not excluded.

On 22/06/2022, the European Commission presented legislative proposals to restore damaged ecosystems and restore nature across the European Union, from farmland and seas to forests and urban environments. The objectives of the new legislation should be met by 2050. The legislative proposals on nature restoration are the first European legislation explicitly aimed at restoring European nature, revitalising 80% of European habitats and restoring nature to all ecosystems, from forests and farmland to marine, freshwater and urban ecosystems. Under the Commission's proposal, each Member State would be obliged to comply with legally binding targets for nature restoration in ecosystems, which will complement existing legislation. Member States should also be obliged to draw up national nature recovery plans, in close cooperation with scientists, stakeholders and the public, which will help to meet the targets while maintaining flexibility to take account of national circumstances.
The European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) voted on the Nature Recovery Objectives on 23/05/2023 and rejected the Commission's proposal by a vote of 30 for and 16 against. The EPP, Renew and ECR political groups were in favour of rejecting the proposal, while the S&D, Greens and Left supported maintaining it. A day later, on 24/05/2023, another Committee of the European Parliament, the Committee on Fisheries, also rejected the European Commission's proposal. It rejected the proposal by 15 votes for rejection and 13 against.
The Council is expected to adopt its opinion on the draft Nature Restoration Law on 20/06/2023.
More information is available here, here, here and here.

On 24/05/2023, the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (COMENVI) adopted its opinion on the proposal for a Directive on industrial emissions. This was presented by the European Commission in April 2022, proposing to include cattle in the scope of the Directive and setting the threshold for the scope of the Directive at 150 livestock units (LU) for pigs, poultry and cattle. The COMENVI Committee voted on three scenarios, the least stringent of which was put forward by the EPP political group. The EPP's proposals were aimed at removing cattle from the scope of the Directive and at setting higher LU thresholds. Two other sets of proposals were tabled against the EPP proposals. The Greens and the Left political groups tabled the most stringent proposal, according to which the threshold for livestock units should be set at 100 LU. The second counterproposal was a proposal from the S&D and Renew groups in COMENVI, according to which the directive should apply to holdings with more than 200 livestock units in pig and poultry holdings and more than 300 livestock units in cattle holdings. Combined holdings should fall under the scope of the Directive if they exceed 250 livestock units. An exception could be made for extensive holdings up to a stocking density of 2 LU per hectare. The COMENVI committee eventually decided to support the S&D and Renew proposals, rejecting those of the EPP, Greens and Left. The final position was adopted by 55 votes to 26, with 6 abstentions. The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) adopted its opinion in April 2023, supporting the status quo, i.e., the exclusion of cattle from the scope of the Directive, among other things. The European Parliament will vote on its final opinion in plenary in the first half of July.
The Council of the European Union adopted its position on the Industrial Emissions Directive in March 2023, supporting thresholds of 280 LU for poultry, 350 LU for pigs, cattle and mixed farms and an exemption for extensive cattle and pig farms with stocking densities of less than 2 livestock units per hectare. However, only hectares of pasture and hectares used to produce animal feed on the farm should be counted. It should therefore not be possible to count all the arable land on which the holding operates when calculating the stocking density for the purposes of using the exemption. Trialogues between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission will start under the Spanish Presidency, after the plenary of the European Parliament has adopted its position.
More information is available here and here.