European Parliament kills off landmark pesticide reduction bill

STRASBOURG — The EU's draft master plan to reduce farmers' dependence on chemical pesticides is dead after lawmakers in the European Parliament voted Wednesday to reject it.

Lawmakers threw out the legislation, the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR), with 299 votes against, 207 in favor, and 121 abstentions.

It's the end of the road for a key plank of the European Commission's Green Deal, which after nearly a year and a half of negotiations never made it to the last stage of negotiations in which the EU's executive, intergovernmental and legislative branches hammer out a final deal.

"This is a very dark day for the society as a whole and for the environment — and also for farmers who'd be freed from dictums of the agroindustry," said Austrian Green MEP Sarah Wiener, Parliament's lead on the file from the environment committee.

The Greens and other left-wing parties ended up voting against the final deal after a concerted push by the European People's Party and other right-wing groups watered down many of the bill's provisions.

Wiener moved to send the text back to the Environment Committee for revision, but the motion was defeated by 324 votes to 292.

The Parliament must adopt a position to open negotiations with the Council of the EU, which represents national capitals, before the text can become law.

The bill, proposed by the European Commission in July 2022, aimed to halve the use and risk of chemical pesticides in the EU, which have been linked to increased rates of cancer and diseases like Parkinson's, as well as environmental degradation, including the decline of pollinating insects without which farmers can't grow crops.

The Commission’s initial proposal has faced pushback from farm and agribusiness lobbies and conservative lawmakers over concerns that it would hamper agricultural productivity and hurt the competitiveness of EU farmers.