The European Environment, Public Health and Food Safety committee has put forward a resolution that demands the reduction of pesticide use to become a key part of the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

This proposal is to help decrease pesticide residues in bee habitats and to evaluate how effective these measures are at protecting bees and other pollinators.

The call comes after the Commission released its Communication on the EU Pollinators Initiative report in June 2018, which the committee have labelled as “insufficient”.

It said that the measures are inadequate to protect bees and other pollinators from land-use changes, loss of habitat, intensive farming, climate change and invasive alien species.

The MEPs said that the initiative fails to address sufficiently, the main causes of pollinators’ decline that are essential for biodiversity and reproduction in many plant species.

Resolution text

  • More targeted measures to protect pollinators needed.
  • Reduction of pesticide use should be an indicator to monitor success.
  • More funds to support research into the causes of bee decline.

    • The resolution was approved on Tuesday 3 December with a 67 vote for adoption and one abstention. It will be put to a vote at the January plenary session in Strasbourg.

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