Jun. 24 – EU: EU ministers clinch deal on new pesticides law

From The Guardian:

European Union agriculture ministers struck a compromise deal on Monday to revise pesticide authorisation laws that should cut the number of crop chemicals that can be sold in EU markets, officials and diplomats said.

The proposed changes, which will now be debated by the European Parliament in the autumn, would replace a law dating from 1991 and let groups of countries with similar geography and climate to decide whether farmers may use specific products.

Britain, Hungary, Ireland and Romania abstained in Monday’s vote, saying the final text was too restrictive and focused too much on danger analysis of pesticides rather than risk analysis.

But the EU’s remaining 23 countries voted in favour, after changes were agreed by EU ambassadors last week for countries to apply exceptions, under certain strict conditions, for particular substances to gain bloc-wide authorisation.

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