Still No Foreseeable Resolution for Emergency Authorisations
Last week, BeeLife and other organisations from the Bee Coalition wrote to Commissioner Andriukaitis since the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed was meeting to discuss the ban and the emergency authorisations of neonicotinoids. Even though the European Commission applied restrictions since 2013 and approved a new ban in 2018, some Member States continue to issue emergency authorisations for these pesticides. As continuously declared by BeeLife, emergency authorisations continue to be a challenge for beekeepers and the sake of bees in several countries of the EU. After EFSA published its evaluations on notifications provided by some Member States to justify the derogations, beekeepers and environmentalists concerns only grew. Therefore, several environmental organisations, including BeeLife, have written to Commissioner Andriukaitis asking him to step up actions to impede circumventing the ban on pesticides that have proven to be dangerous for bees. Commissioner Andriukaitis has replied directly to the petition campaign by Avaaz (member of the Bee Coalition). In his short reply, he has mentioned that: 1. We restricted three neonicotinoids. 2. 1/3 of derogations are not OK. 3. I asked Member States to stop granting emergency authorisations. He also stated that he "will be vigilant on this. But only together we can defend nature, health and bees". The Commissioner has written to the countries which continue to grant emergency authorisations. However, it seems that the efforts are still not enough. One of the significant issues at hand is that the situation is not new. There have been over seventy emergency authorisations of neonicotinoids around Europe since 2013 and, without increasing control, numbers might keep rising.
Want to support bees? Sign the petition to "protect the bees by cracking down on the abuse of neonicotinoid 'emergency authorizations' that EU member states are granting without sufficient documentation of emergency insect attacks. We urge you to bring in stricter rules and ensure that chemical companies that profit from these authorisations have no say in the process":