{"id":2225,"date":"2019-10-23T13:11:03","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T11:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/?p=2225"},"modified":"2019-11-06T09:33:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:33:33","slug":"eu-parliament-new-protections-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/issues\/nature-food\/2225\/eu-parliament-new-protections-bees\/","title":{"rendered":"European Parliament backs new protections for bees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels<\/b>\u00a0\u2013 The European Parliament has backed new protections for bees, thwarting a <\/span>move by the EU Commission and national governments<\/span><\/a> to maintain outdated guidelines for how to evaluate the dangers of pesticides. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The vote at the Parliament\u2019s plenary session in Strasbourg aims to ensure that <\/span>more rigorous safeguards<\/span><\/a> for bees and other pollinators, proposed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in 2013, be applied.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Franziska Achterberg, Greenpeace EU food policy director,<\/b> said: <\/span>\u201cThe new Parliament has shown that it\u2019s serious about protecting Europe\u2019s threatened pollinators. The Parliament has passed its first green test, it\u2019s now for von der Leyen and her team to show that the Commission can do the same and protect bees from dangerous pesticides.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In 2018, the EU<\/span> banned three neonicotinoid<\/span><\/a> pesticides based on a thorough evaluation of their risks to bees, using an evaluation mechanism that EFSA put forward in 2013. With this vote, the Parliament rejected the <\/span>proposal<\/span><\/a>, introduced by the Commission, which would turn only a very small part of that mechanism into legislation, without improving the overall protection of bees.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Incoming <\/span>EU commissioner for health Stella Kyriakides<\/span><\/a> said there would be \u201cno lowering of the bar on the protection of bees and other pollinators\u201d in her hearing before the Parliament\u2019s environment committee on 1 October. Parliament has made it clear that this is not good enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday 22 October, the Commission and national governments decided to <\/span>ban a fourth neonicotinoid<\/span><\/a>, thiacloprid, on the basis of serious concerns for people\u2019s health. EFSA had not completed a full evaluation of its potential risks to bees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read:<\/strong> Greenpeace background document on new protections for bees<\/a><\/p>\n

Contact:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Franziska Achterberg, Greenpeace EU food policy director: <\/b>+32 (0)498 36 24 03, <\/span>franziska.achterberg@greenpeace.org<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Greenpeace EU press desk: <\/b>+32 (0)2 274 1911, <\/span>pressdesk.eu@greenpeace.org<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For breaking news and comment on EU affairs: <\/span>www.twitter.com\/GreenpeaceEU<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brussels\u00a0\u2013 The European Parliament has backed new protections for bees, thwarting a move by the EU Commission and national governments to maintain outdated guidelines for how to evaluate the dangers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[27,36],"p4-page-type":[14],"class_list":["post-2225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature-food","tag-food","tag-pesticides","p4-page-type-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions\/2231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}