Dear members of the Agriculture Committee of the European Parliament,
We have been closely following the policy process on the proposal of the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Regulation (SUR), which is of large public interest. Securing robust and coherent provisions in the SUR is urgent and essential to protecting farmers’, farmworkers’ and citizens’ health, tackle the biodiversity crisis, the collapse of ecosystems, and support the much-needed transformation towards resilient food systems. So we are concerned about attempts to delete or weaken article 43 of the SUR proposal of the European Commission. This article includes amending Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 establishing rules on support for strategic plans to be drawn up by Member States under the common agricultural policy (CAP Strategic Plans) and financed by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) in order that, during a 5-year transition period, support may be granted to comply with SUR requirements imposed on farmers.