Europe could and should be much healthier and biodiverse. Four years ago the PEST Committee in the European Parliament concluded after 9 months of investigations, hearings, missions and commissioning of studies that the current system of pesticides authorisation is failing to achieve its purpose, highlighting the need for urgent change. The Committee report listed 116 recommendations calling for independence, objectivity, transparency and better use of science in the whole procedure, in order to achieve the high level of protection required by the EU pesticides Regulation. The report was endorsed by the European Parliament (European Parliament resolution, 2019).
According to PAN Europe’s analysis, to date:
- 15% of the PEST recommendations have been sufficiently implemented,
- 28% of the PEST recommendations have either been partly or insufficiently implemented, or the work is ongoing (and its outcome remains uncertain),
- 57% of the PEST recommendations have not been implemented or the implementation has not led to the requested improvement. In a few cases, the situation got worse.
We conclude that both health and environment are seriously at risk by the current pesticide use. Our roadmap describes 10 priorities that urgently need to be addressed to meet the level of safety required by EU regulation.
Read further here.
