Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-22-Speech-1-078"
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"en.20071022.14.1-078"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioners Dimas and Kyprianos, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the Commission’s proposal for a framework for Community action to achieve sustainable use of pesticides, and my remarks here today will be confined to that part of the overall package.
We want the same protection and the same standard throughout the EU. In many countries the proposed measures have typified good practice for some time. For this reason, harmonisation of the rules governing the use of plant protection agents is imperative, which is why the Commission’s approach is the right one. It is up to all of us now – and we can take this as an invitation – to initiate a directive that keeps red tape to a minimum while matching our aspirations. I ask for your support.
This is a vast field, in which a great deal of adjustment is still needed throughout Europe for the sake of consumers and users and particularly for the sake of the environment. Differing rules in the European Union not only create divergent safety standards but are also confusing and distort competition.
The possibility of pests destroying a whole year’s harvests is, thankfully, a thing of the past in Europe. Today, however, we face new major challenges, to which we must respond with a sound policy on plant protection. The global population is growing, and food is becoming scarcer worldwide. Climate change has altered the conditions in which farming takes place: new pests are appearing, and natural disasters decimate harvests. It is still essential today, therefore, to safeguard harvests, and the use of plant protection agents helps to do that.
With plant protection, as with many other things in life, it is the dose that makes the poison. Whilst a sleeping tablet is a boon, many sleeping tablets can be fatal. Care must be taken to ensure that plant protection products are used properly and professionally, because improper use is dangerous. That is true not only on farmland but also in public spaces such as parks, playgrounds, sports fields, pathways and railway tracks. Information, education and knowledge of the implications of pesticide use, of its benefits but also of its risks, are at the heart of this directive. Sellers and users of plant protection agents must be trained and informed.
By means of national action plans, the Member States must ensure that plant protection products are used sustainably. In so doing, they must strive for consistency with other Community provisions. Well-tested and safe application machinery will ensure targeted plant protection, the aim being to minimise any risk.
An arbitrary percentage reduction across the entire range of plant protection agents runs counter to the aims of good agricultural practice and integrated pest management. We need both these factors, Commissioner Dimas, and we shall continue to need good farming practice and integrated pest management, because we need dynamism. The stringent regulation on authorisation, moreover, has been reduced to absurdity. Products with harmful effects must not be authorised at all; it is not enough to cut their use by half. If, however, plant protection agents have come through a stringent approval process, reducing their use by a certain percentage across the board would be illogical. Moreover, no one has yet been able to explain to me precisely how such a reduction is supposed to be managed and quantified.
The same applies to protection of the aquatic environment. The arbitrary establishment of standard buffer strips next to water bodies serves no purpose. A differentiated approach remains necessary here. Buffer strips must be right for the geographical situation, the soil properties and the plants that require protection. This kind of approach has already been adopted in the instructions for use that come with the various plant protection products.
You mentioned crop spraying from the air, Commissioner. For the steeply sloping vineyards along the banks beside the Moselle in my home area or indeed for the rice plantations in southern Europe, there is no alternative. In those places crop spraying from the air is indispensable. The use of crop spraying helicopters, however, must be regulated. Particular care is needed in sensitive areas, such as parks and public or school playgrounds. The use of pesticides there must be kept to an absolute minimum, and non-chemical alternatives should take precedence. In my opinion, that could even mean sending out an entire school class to weed the school grounds.
Banning plant protection altogether in areas that are home to particular species of flora and fauna would be inconsistent with the aims of habitat conservation. Pesticides are actually essential if these habitats are to be preserved. Plant protection products are expensive, and no farmer will apply more than is absolutely necessary. Additional taxes distort competition in the world market. They would result in the purchase of cheaper products from outside the EU, which would ill serve the cause of sustainability."@en1
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