WIREDGOV

Speech given recently (25 November 2022) by Commissioner Stella Kyriakides at the Meeting with the Organisers of the European Citizens Initiative "Save Bees and Farmers".

"Check against delivery"

First, let me welcome your successful European Citizens' Initiative, Save Bees and Farmers.

I say welcome because as you know, we have been working on many fronts to move EU policy forward on the issues you address, so as to:

• Take concrete action to protect all pollinators,
• protect the environment and human health from pesticide risks,
• conserve and restore nature on farmland; and
• support farmers in the transition towards more sustainable farming.

Central to the European Green Deal for a more sustainable future are two ambitious initiatives:

• the Farm to Fork Strategy, championing a fair, healthy, environmentally friendly food system; and
• the EU Biodiversity Strategy, bringing nature back into our lives.

We have proposed strong rules on the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products. These will require Member States to adopt national binding targets to help meet overall EU targets.

This initiative will strengthen our actions to protect pollinators by decreasing pesticide use and moving away from chemical pesticides to make their ecosystems healthier.

Farmers will be supported in practising environmentally friendly pest control, using approaches like Integrated Pest Management, in which alternative pest prevention and control are considered first. Chemical pesticides are then only used as a last resort.

The proposal for a Nature Restoration Law under the Biodiversity Strategy will help restore degraded ecosystems across the EU, including on agricultural land, and will reverse the decline of pollinators by 2030.

This law, if adopted, would be the first EU-wide, comprehensive restoration law of its kind, setting out legally binding targets for nature restoration.

We have proposed specific, time-bound targets which complement and reinforce existing EU legislation on nature, water and the marine environment.

The aim is to counter biodiversity loss, keep our nature in good health, and help us mitigate and adapt to climate change.  

Member States and the European Parliament, as co-legislators, are now discussing these two ground-breaking proposals.

We will rely on your active support to maintain the ambition of these key proposals for our pollinators.

In addition, we have an action plan in place to help meet the 25% organic land target and support the organic sector towards reaching its full potential.

And that's not all. The new legislative framework of the Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, contains a more flexible performance- and results-based approach that takes into account local conditions and needs, while stepping up the EU's overall sustainability ambitions.

In line with the Green Deal's ambitions of the new CAP, its environmental objectives aim to increase EU agriculture's contribution to climate change action, better manage natural resources and better protect biodiversity.

The new green architecture is at the core of the new policy: CAP beneficiaries will have to fulfil tougher baseline requirements and can participate in the new “eco-schemes” that aim to reward farmers for going further in rolling out sustainable agricultural practices.

The rural development framework also compensates farmers and other beneficiaries for voluntarily committing themselves to sustainable practices: implementing environmentally friendly production systems such as agro-ecology, agroforestry and organic farming, for instance.

Farmers across the EU can also benefit under the CAP when engaging in bee- and apiculture-friendly activities.

The national CAP Strategic Plans that EU Member States have drawn up to implement the new CAP are mostly approved, or being approved. The aim now is for the Commission to adopt them before the end of the year, so that they can apply from 1 January.

If Member States wish to protect pollinators, we have given them many instruments to do so. It is now important that their citizens clearly demand it, and your initiative  helps greatly in doing so.

I think it's also important that I draw your attention to a number of other initiatives we've been taking alongside the bold, wide-ranging initiatives I've just mentioned.

First, we have the recently updated rules for approving micro-organisms for use in plant protection, to facilitate access to biological alternatives to chemical pesticides.

This should also reduce harm to pollinators by providing alternatives to chemical pesticides.

Second, the bee guidance document and the EU Pollinators Initiative are both being revised to boost protection for bees and wild pollinators.

Third, we can look forward to the higher-quality pesticides data we need for better pesticide indicators, once the Regulation on Statistics on Agricultural Inputs and Outputs is adopted in December.

Now it's over to you. I'm sure our discussion today will enable us to better understand your objectives.

Together with my Vice-President Jourová and my fellow Commissioners responsible for the topics addressed by your initiative, we will co-lead the Commission's official reply.