By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Oct 23 2007 (IPS)

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are seeking that pesticide use be halved within a decade in order to reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals in the environment.

Some 40 percent of all fruit and vegetables on sale in the European Union could be contaminated with pesticide residues, with 5 percent exceeding legal thresholds, according to studies cited by green campaigners.

The Pesticide Action Network Europe has argued that the young are particularly vulnerable. By some estimates, children are 164 times more at risk from organophosphates – chemicals routinely used in farming worldwide – than adults. Nine out of ten children in the U.S. are exposed to 13 different organophosphates in the food they eat each day.

In July, the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, recommended that a 1991 law regulating pesticides should be updated and that restrictions on their use should be introduced.

Members of the Parliament, the Union’s only directly body, have generally welcomed some measures suggested by the Commission – such as a partial ban on aerial spraying with pesticides.

Yet in an Oct. 22 debate, many MEPs argued that the Commission’s proposal should be bolder.

The Parliament’s environment committee is urging, for example, that firm targets be set, slashing pesticide use by 25 percent within five years and by 50 percent within a decade.

Hiltrud Breyer, a German Green MEP, said that at 260,000 tonnes per year, Europe accounts for one-quarter of the world’s consumption of pesticides, even though it only has 4 percent of the world’s agricultural land.

“We should show the red card to dangerous substances such as those which cause cancer,” she said. “People in Europe don’t want poison on their tables.”

Breyer, who prepared the environment committee’s official stance on the Commission’s proposal, is also pushing for stringent measures on protecting water. She believes that a buffer zone should be created, guaranteeing that no pesticides should be used within 10 metres of water courses.

Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde said that in his country “luckily we have pure underground water.” As a result, it is safer to drink tap water than that sold in bottles. “I would support a buffer zone because I don’t want to allow groundwater to become polluted,” he said.

Other MEPs argued that the 10-metre limit was excessive.

Johannes Blokland, a Dutch MEP, said that a buffer zone of that nature would be problematic for farmers in the Netherlands because of the proximity of much farmland to water courses. “It would mean 35 percent of farming land could not be sprayed.”

His Socialist compatriot Dorette Corbey said she would prefer leaving it to national governments to determine the precise dimensions of any buffer zone. Dutch Liberal Jan Mulder contended that “10 metres would be a disaster in the Netherlands, among other countries.”

British Conservative Neil Parish claimed that the weed-killer Roundup can be used on plants near a river and stream without any deleterious effects.

Stavros Dimas, Europe’s environment commissioner, said he was in favour of introducing a buffer zone but “an across-the-board one-size fits all approach would not be correct.

“I would rather give (EU) member states some room for manoeuvre,” he added. “They can agree on how wide a buffer zone will be depending on the situation on the ground.”

Dimas argued that current EU law relating to pesticides had focused on placing them on the market. A “legislative gap” on their use needed to be filled, he added.

He agreed, too, that there should be limits placed on aerial spraying. “But a complete ban on aerial spraying would be too extreme,” he said. “We have to give member states flexibility.”

He ruled out introducing a Europe-wide tax on pesticides, saying that a study on its pros and cons was needed before such a proposal could be put forward.

French Green Marie Anne Isler Béguin alleged that there is a “joint management of our pesticide policy by government and industry, and this has really harmed the environment and human health.”

It is necessary, she added, for MEPs to “stand our ground and fight the chemical industry.”

In a related proposal, the European Commission has advocated drawing Europe into three zones – north, centre and south – for regulating pesticides.

But ecological activists are opposed to this idea. The Pesticides Action Network says that it is wrong to lump regions with a largely temperate climate such as Britanny in France together with more arid areas such as Cyprus. Yet under the Commission’s approach a pesticide approved for use in Cyprus would also have to be authorised in northern France as both would belong to the ‘south’ zone.

Dan Jorgensen, a Danish Socialist, said that Denmark currently allows 100 pesticides but is taking steps to reduce that by half. If the Commission’s plan is introduced, it would be hampered from preventing the introduction of new pesticides. “This is making things easier for industry,” he said. “It is looking at things the wrong way round.”

Jim Allister, an independent MEP representing Northern Ireland, expressed fears that golf courses would have more weeds if pesticide use is curbed.

German Christian Democrat Christa Klass argued that there is “no alternative” to aerial spraying in vine-growing areas of southeast Europe.

But Françoise Grossetête, a French centre-right MEP, said that there should be a legal requirement that farmers inform neighbours before any aerial spraying occurs. This is especially necessary, she added, to protect those who suffer from respiratory ailments like asthma.

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