Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-14-Speech-1-249-000"
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"en.20111114.21.1-249-000"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Dalli, ladies and gentlemen, the main focus of my report is honeybee health, but I would also like to respond to some of the other important challenges facing this sector. The directorate general of the European Commission produced an excellent communication; I used it as the basis for my report and have tried to develop it further. I would like the Commission, the Member States and those concerned in the beekeeping sector to actually implement the many concrete proposals set out in this report. It is not primarily European honey production that is at stake. Through pollination, the beekeeping sector offers vital services to agriculture as a whole and contributes to biodiversity. If it were not for the activities of bees and other pollinators, 85% of agricultural crops would not exist. In other words, the beekeeping sector provides vital environmental public goods, and this is why we need to use Community resources to support it.
The problem is that for decades, medicines have been in short supply. The big pharmaceutical companies lack sufficient interest in developing new medicinal products, while the beekeeping industry does not have enough money to support the development of new honeybee health products. This is a problem that has gone on for decades. If we cannot make progress on these issues using Community resources, then the crisis currently affecting the European and global beekeeping sector will not be resolved.
The other major problem is that the sector is not sufficiently well organised. Reliable statistical data on honeybee health, and even on the number of hives or colonies, are lacking. So it would be vital to have reliable figures to work with, at both Member State and European Union level. Another big problem is that many beekeepers lack professional competence. It would be very important for Member States to make beekeeping subject to some kind of professional training requirement. I consider it very important to assess the effect of plant protection on honeybee health problems, which is the most controversial issue. There are those in Parliament who would like to lay all the blame on plant protection products; I disagree with this. Others, meanwhile, try to play down their impact.
Regrettably, certain forces prevented me from including in my report details of which plant protection products are particularly harmful and which active substances in these products could be substituted by other active substances less harmful to honeybee health. I am referring to neonicotinoid pesticides and, in future, I will be fighting alongside friends campaigning for environmental protection and bee protection to have these substances removed from plant protection products wherever possible.
I call upon the Commission to modify the Honey Directive because quality parameters for honey are not adequately defined under the current provisions and this means that we are unable to take appropriate action against adulterators and the adulteration of honey. Quality issues relating to imported honey are also a problem. Last, the extent to which genetically modified, or genetically engineered, crops are harmful or not is also the subject of major controversy.
I call upon the European Commission to commission at last a research study that is reliable, objective and scientific, as this is not a matter of feelings but of science. At present, no such study exists. With regard to antibiotics, meanwhile, I call upon Commissioner Dalli to legislate on this issue at EU level. In the case of meat products, for example, there are set limits for antibiotic residue content, despite the fact that we consume much more meat than honey. There is no such provision in the case of honey. It would be good to resolve this at EU level. Finally, Albert Einstein once said, and I thought this was an exaggeration, that if the world’s bees were to perish, then humans would perish within four years too. He may have been speaking figuratively, but in the light of what we now know about the huge impact of beekeeping in terms of securing food production and maintaining biodiversity, I believe we should listen to Albert Einstein’s advice. Thank you for your attention."@en1
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