EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 84/655

(2004/C 84 E/0739)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0691/04

by Dominique Souchet (Nl) to the Commission

(9 March 2004)

Subject: Systemic insecticides

On 23 February, the French Ministry of Agriculture announced a ban on the sale of any products containing Fipronil, an insecticide molecule, as a preventative measure following the charges brought against Bayer Crop over the possible toxicity to human or animal health of agricultural products containing this molecule.

Does the Commission intend to draw any particular conclusions from the decision to introduce a ban in keeping with the precautionary principle?

With regard to beekeeping more specifically, does the Commission plan to take measures identical to those taken in France?

How does the Commission intend to follow up the resolution on measures to improve the production and marketing of honey (A5-0381/2001), adopted by the European Parliament on 13 December 2001, which noted that ‘extremely serious damage has been caused to bee populations in several Member States by systemic insecticides with extremely long residual activity periods’?

Answer given by Mr Byrne on behalf of the Commission

(6 April 2004)

The Commission has taken note of the declaration of 23 February 2004 of the French Minister of Agriculture that national authorisations of products containing fipronil are to be suspended pending a position on the substance by the European Food Safety Authority. The Commission notes that the products are marketed in France by BASF and not by Bayer CropScience.

The Commission notes that this reflects a precautionary approach by the French authorities following a scientific analysis of the fipronil dossier by the French authorities.

A scientific analysis of the dossier is now being undertaken at Community level by the European Food Safety Authority in the framework of Council Directive 91/414/EEC of 15 July 1991 on the placing of plant protection products on the market (1). When the analysis is complete, the Commission will propose appropriate measures at Community level for the substance in question. Since the Directive provides that, pending a Community Decision on the substance, Member States may continue to apply national measures to products containing the substance, the Commission does not propose taking any measures at this time other than following the case closely and facilitating the exchange of information among the Member States.

As far as the follow-up to the Parliament Resolution is concerned, the Commission adopted the follow-up on the recommendations in its meeting of 5 February 2004 (2). This follow-up was e-mailed to Parliament on 11 February 2004 in the language in which it was drafted. The other language versions will be sent as soon as they become available.

Programmes presented by the Member States under Council Regulation (EC) No 1221/97 of 25 June 1997 laying down general rules for the application of measures to improve the production and marketing of honey (3) may include measures to restock hives. For example, the honey programme presented by France for the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 marketing years includes such measures.

(1) OJ L 230, 19.8.1991.

(2) Doc. SP (2004)-293.

(3) OJ L 173, 1.7.1997.