WRITTEN QUESTION E-2055/99

by Paul Lannoye (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(3 November 1999)

Subject: Addition of imidacloprid to Annex I of Regulation (EEC) No 3600/92

In January 1999 the French government adopted a provisional ban on the use of the Bayer insecticide Gaucho (active ingredient: imidacloprid) for sunflower crops in France. Between 1993 and 1997 beekeepers based in central and western-central France noted that their harvests of sunflower honey were falling constantly. These falls in production were attributed to losses of foraging bees as the crop was flowering. The extent to which the nectar flow diminished correlated with the increase in the area sown with sunflower seed treated with Gaucho.

The November 1998 summary report of a study on the effects of phytosanitary products on bees, with particular reference to the effects of sunflower seed treated with Gaucho on the disappearance of foraging bees (Mih-Hà PHAM-Delegue, Inra, and Sophie Cluzeau, Acta), which was undertaken with EU support (under Council regulation No 1221/97(1)), concluded that laboratory tests indicated that bees could be at risk from concentrations of imidacloprid likely to be present in treated sunflowers under field conditions.

Field observations made as part of this study do not corroborate the risks shown in the laboratory. However the study indicates that this risk could have been obscured or compensated for by the presence of imidacloprid in plants at the test sites. Despite the fact that on three of the four test sites there had been no plantings of seeds treated with Gaucho since 1995 or 1993, imidacloprid was detected in some of the plants and the nectar products derived from non-treated crops. There is clearly a problem with persistence of imidacloprid in the soil, apparently over long periods.

In view of the serious suspicions concerning this pesticide, will the Commission take the initiative to add this product forthwith to the list of substances in the annex to Regulation EEC No 3600/92(2)?

(1) OJ L 173, 1.7.1997, p. 1.

(2) OJ L 366, 15.12.1992, p. 10.

Answer given by Mr Byrne on behalf of the Commission

(8 December 1999)

Council Directive 91/414/EEC of 15 July 1991 concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market(1) sets up a harmonised framework for the authorisation, placing on the market, use and control of plant protection products in the Community.

In 1992 the Commission adopted Regulation (EEC) No 3600/92 of 11 December 1992 laying down the detailed rules for the implementation of the first stage of the programme of work under Article 8(2) of Council Directive 91/414/EEC covering the evaluation of a first list of 90 important and widely used active substances in agriculture covering an estimated 30 % of agricultural uses. This programme, which continues, permits the development of expertise and mutual confidence-building in Member States and the Commission.

The Commission is currently preparing the next phase of the review programme. It is expected that this would result in early 2000 in the adoption of further implementing measures for the review of the remaining existing active substances. It is the intention to speed up the review, based on experience with the first programme. All the remaining existing active substances (with a few exceptions such as micro-organisms or plant extracts) would be covered.

Directive 91/414/EEC provides also that Member States may review at any time authorisations if there are indications that any of the authorisation requirements are no longer satisfied. This would be the case so far for the authorisation of imidacloprid in certain crops.

(1) OJ L 230, 19.8.1991.