Bijdrage mili­eu­com­missie tijdens gedach­te­wis­seling met de Europese Auto­riteit voor voed­sel­vei­ligheid (EFSA) over de Bee Guidance

Anja Hazekamp (PvdD): For many years, independent scientists have been warning about the risks of pesticides, especially the systemic ones like neonicotinoids to bees. But still we have not managed to come up with adequate scientific models to exclude these harmful pesticides in the authorization procedure.

The Bee Guidance that EFSA put forward in 2013 has been under heavy fire from the lobbyists of the chemical industry and has subsequently basically been killed in the Council. Member States have been defending the interests of the mighty chemical industry, and because of this, dangerous chemicals are still authorized.

Let me ask you: how will this consultation procedure that you have initiated guarantee a different outcome? We see an overrepresentation of industry in the stakeholders group. We know that these players can spend as much time and as much money as they like to avoid stricter guidelines that which will hinder their market access. We see the same experts from Member States who opposed your bee guidance being included in the review. How will this solve the deadlock?

The fight will not be solved in consultation groups with corporate interests, but can only be solved by using sound science. And the only stakeholders that really matter here are the bees, the butterflies and the beetles. And you already know that to do to protect them. Economic arguments cannot solve an ecological crisis.

I have two technical questions for you.

The fight is about which models to use and what percentage to accept as ‘normal’ morbidity in bees, and how to conduct field experiments. Please explain us your point of view on these aspects, and why industry is so much opposed to this?

And the second one. Would you agree that the level of “acceptable” losses should be measured in non-agricultural environments, given that most agricultural environments are already contaminated with agrichemicals?

Thank you very much.