Today the European Parliament voted down the Commission’s proposal for an ambitious pesticides reduction in Europe. The proposal was urgent and essential to ensure a minimum of protection of EU citizens and ecosystems from the toxicity of pesticides. The lack of support represents a severe attack on the Green Deal and the public interest. This is a sad day for EU democracy, ahead of European elections. The parliament voted on the Regulation on the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products (SUR). A voting session that deleted the majority of key measures of the proposal led to a text deprived of all substance. "Thousands of scientists and millions of citizens have demanded reduction of pesticides to protect health and the environment. By not addressing these demands, the European Parliament is sending a negative signal to voters on its ability to deal with major societal issues. It is evident that the agrilobby has taken control of our House of Democracy,” says Martin Dermine, PAN Europe executive director. Pesticide Action Network Europe

 

 

Industry lobbies and their allies have waged a relentless attack on the Farm to Fork promise to cut pesticide use and harm in half by 2030, writes Corporate Europe Observatory in a new report. Although the pesticides industry has pretended to embrace the EU Green Deal goals and the Farm to Fork targets – such as the pesticide reduction target in the SUR - it has in fact worked very hard to delay and derail them. Their campaign started with an old lobby tactic to cause delays: Calling for more impact assessment for the sake of "food security". They used the COVID crisis and the Russia-Ukraine war to amplify their calls. There is ample evidence that the pesticide industry lobby has acted as irresponsibly as fossil fuel corporations with regards to our common future on this planet. Stopping harm to biodiversity and ecosystems and addressing the climate crisis are one and the same thing. The lack of action is causing despair among scientists. “We know that ecosystems are collapsing, with major risks to us as well,” said Guy Pe’er, an ecologist at the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research, in DeSmog. “Why is there such a glaring gap between the knowledge about what needs to be done and action by politicians?” Corporate Europe Observatory

 

 

A US jury has ordered Bayer's Monsanto to pay $165 million to employees of a school northeast of Seattle who claimed chemicals made by the company called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, leaked from light fixtures and got them sick. The Washington state court jury found the company liable for selling products containing PCBs used in the Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington, that were not safe, and did not include adequate warnings. The award included nearly $50 million in compensatory damages, and $115 million in punitive damages. Reuters

 

 

An Irish MEP has called for over the counter sales of glyphosate weedkillers like Roundup to be restricted over health concerns. Grace O'Sullivan's call follows the EU's decision to approve the chemical for use for another decade after EU member states failed twice to deliver a majority vote on the issue. Irish Mirror

 

 

Basudeb Acharia, former Member of India's Parliament, has passed away at the age of 81. He left behind a legacy of scientific approach to the difficult question of deciding on GM crops. The parliamentary committee he headed recommended a ban on field trials of all genetically modified crops. The committee blamed “collusion of the worst kind” behind the promotion of the genetically modified Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine). Counterview

 

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