WRITTEN QUESTION E-0546/01

by Christa Randzio-Plath (PSE) to the Commission

(27 February 2001)

Subject: Working conditions of women engaged in floriculture in Africa and Latin America

1. In view of the fact that the EU imports cut flowers from Africa and Latin America, what possibilities does the Commission see of improving conditions for women working in floricultural centres in Africa and Latin America in terms of health, environment, benefits and the labour regulations applicable to them?

2. What is the European Union doing to enforce in these countries also the ban on pesticides already applicable in Europe and to support the flower label programme organised by the international human rights organisation, FIAN?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(11 May 2001)

1. When the system of generalised preferences (GSP) came up for renewal in 1998 the Commission proposed a system of incentives to encourage the Andean and Central American countries to comply with labour and environmental standards. That system would have covered the products in question. However, despite the backing of some Member States, the Council chose not to take up the Commission's proposal.

The Commission nevertheless remains acutely aware of the harsh working conditions in African and Latin American floriculture and indeed throughout agriculture and industry in those regions. The GSP and the Cotonou Agreements are going some way to improving matters on the ground, though by how much it is still too soon to say.

2. The licensing of pesticides in the Community is governed by Directive 91/414/EEC of 15 July 1991 concerning the placing on the market and use of plant protection products(1) and Directive 98/8/EC of the Parliament and the Council of 16 February 1998 concerning the placing on the market of biocidal products(2). Furthermore, Council Directives 76/769/EEC of 27 July 1976(3) and 79/117/EEC of 21 December 1978(4) respectively provide for the prohibition or restriction of the marketing and use in the Community of certain biocidal products and plant protection products. Decisions under these Directives do not apply to exported products.

Under the London Guidelines for the exchange of information on chemicals in international trade and the International Code of Conduct on the distribution and use of pesticides, two voluntary procedures for notifying importing (mainly developing) countries were adopted at international level in 1989. With the adoption of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2455/92 of 23 July 1992 concerning the import and export of certain dangerous chemicals(5), the export notification and prior informed consent (PIC) procedures became mandatory for Community exporters. The first covers 39 groups of substances (totalling some 200 individual substances), while the second currently applies to 32 chemicals, 26 of them pesticides.

In 1998 the Community and 72 states signed the Rotterdam Convention, which will make the two procedures mandatory at global level. The Convention will enter into force as soon as 50 signatories have ratified it.

More information on the procedures and the lists of chemicals concerned can be found on the websites of the Convention (http://www.pic.int/) and the Commission (http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/chemicals/index.htm). In the course of the year the Commission intends to notify the Convention's interim secretariat of more pesticides recently restricted within the Community for possible inclusion in the PIC procedure.

This year the Commission is also planning to propose a draft decision for the ratification of the Rotterdam Convention and amendments to bring Regulation (EEC) No 2455/92 into line with the Convention. It is also considering including in its proposed amendments a provision banning the export of certain chemicals already banned within the Community, for example those of most concern.

Last but not least, the Commission intends in the next few months to propose a draft decision on the conclusion of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), which will ban or restrict the production and/or use throughout the world of 12 POPs, eight of them pesticides already banned in the Community.

As for how the Community could support a label of the type advocated by the environmentalist Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN), the Commission is currently studying the general and highly complex question of various forms of labelling.

(1) OJ L 230, 19.8.1991.

(2) OJ L 123, 29.4.1998.

(3) OJ L 262, 27.9.1976.

(4) OJ L 33, 8.2.1979.

(5) OJ L 251, 29.8.1992.