The new European Commission has detailed its European Green Deal through the Farm to Fork (F2F), the Biodiversity Strategies (BS), and the Chemical Strategy for Sustainability (CSS). For the first time ever, has the European Commission acknowledged that pesticides were an important driver of biodiversity loss and a threat to people's health. The Commission has underlined the necessity to curve pesticides' use to protect biodiversity. In the F2F and the BS, the European Commission set the objective to reduce the use and risk of pesticides by 50% until 2030, to reduce the use of the most harmful pesticides by 50% until 2030 as well as to restore biodiversity in the EU. Furthermore, the CSS details measures such as the risk assessment of multiple exposures and a ban on the export of EU-banned pesticides.
An approach which the European Commission followed up publishing a report acknowledging that the EU Directive on Sustainable Use of Pesticides is not implemented. The European Commission then sent a number of letters to member states calling on them to start implementation, and as part of that stop applying essential use derogations.
Fungicide Mancozeb was banned as it was classified as toxic to reproduction and is an endocrine disruptor. It was also one of the most used pesticides in the EU. PAN Europe has been advocating to ban this substance and we managed to obtain this ban, despite the opposition from a series of Member States.
In parallel, the reform of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) has moved forward in the particular context that the newly elected Commission had to deal with the CAP proposal from the previous executive. No final decision took place in 2020.