Press releases
No contamination before 1988 - sharp increase since 2010 - current levels very high
Brussels, 23 April 2025 – New data revealing a dramatic rise in levels of the forever chemical TFA (trifluoroacetic acid) in the environment have been published today by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN Europe) in its report Message from the Bottle – The Rapid Rise of TFA Contamination Across the EU.
At 4:30 on Thursday morning, EU institutions reached a provisional agreement on the long-awaited, and first-ever, EU legislative framework for soils: the Soil Monitoring Law. However, the deal falls short of what’s urgently needed, environmental NGOs warn.
The European Parliament’s Environment Committee failed to take a step forward in its ambition to protect Europe’s water resources under the EU Water Resilience Strategy. It adopted a report that has been weakened by the conservative and far-right members, cancelling out important additional efforts to make Europe more climate and water resilient.
The EU is reviewing a guidance document to protect insects and other arthropods against the negative effects of pesticides. The current document is outdated and was co-written by the pesticide industry. It has never led to a ban on pesticides that contribute to Europe's staggering loss of its insect biomass and its farmland bird populations. The EFSA working group preparing the new guideline is unbalanced and is discussing unscientific ecosystem service and disservice concepts. This will not correct the biodiversity collapse we are facing.
A group of over 450 scientists is calling on the European Union to swiftly update its water pollution standards to address the increasing threat of chemical pollution, including PFAS (‘forever chemicals’), in Europe’s freshwater ecosystems.
On the eve of the Pesticide Action Week [1], the Cluj (Romania) Court of Appeal suspended [2] new derogations [3] granted by the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture for the use of neonicotinoid-treated seeds in maize and sunflower. Eco Ruralis and Romapis, a member of PAN Europe, initiated a court case in December, asking the Court to take urgent action to protect pollinators against these illegal derogations.
PAN Europe is co-organising a high-level event at the European Parliament tomorrow Wednesday 19 March to address an urgent and largely overlooked global threat to drinking water: Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). The conference streamed online, will bring together leading experts and policymakers to discuss the environmental and public health risks all over Europe posed by TFA, a highly persistent breakdown product of several chemicals, especially PFAS pesticides.
In a landmark decision on 12 March, EU Member States adopted the European Commission's proposal to ban the endocrine-disrupting PFAS pesticide flufenacet. PAN Europe applauds this decisive action, which aligns with the EU's requirement to protect human health and the environment. We, however, stress the importance of taking comprehensive action on PFAS pesticides and ensuring that farmers do not turn to similarly problematic substitutes.
PAN Europe has asked the EU Commission to withdraw the pesticide and biocide deltamethrin from the market immediately to prevent any further harm to unborn children. New research shows that exposure of pregnant mice to low doses of the insecticide causes brain damage in the offspring related to learning and memory, relevant for the human autism spectrum. The results come on top of 30+ independent studies that report on developmental neurotoxicity of deltamethrin.
Today the Commission published its Vision for Agriculture and Food. The text includes a worrying unscientific pesticide industry narrative on pesticides. The Commission backtracked on commitments to better protect EU agriculture competitiveness and citizens’ health by lowering Maximum Residue Levels in imported food. The vision lacks the teeth and sense of urgency needed in view of the health and environmental crises, which are wrecking a thriving future for farmers, citizens and ecosystems.
