[Pollinator] French ban on neonicotinoids upheld

[David Inouye]

  European Top Court Upholds French Ban on Bee-Harming Pesticides

<https://www.ecowatch.com/u/deutschewelle> Deutsche Welle 
<https://www.ecowatch.com/u/deutschewelle>
Oct. 12, 2020 11:24AM EST Animals <https://www.ecowatch.com/animals/>
A bee gathers pollen on thyme on a balcony in Paris, France. /ERIC 
FEFERBERG / AFP via Getty Images/

The European Court of Justice on Oct. 8 found that France did not 
violate EU rules when it banned certain chemicals considered harmful to 
bees <http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bees>.

The legal row between the French Crop Protection Association and France 
goes back to 2018, when the government banned some pesticides belonging 
to the neonicotinoid <http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/neonicotinoids> group.

The ban placed France at the forefront of a campaign against chemicals 
blamed for decimating crop-pollinating bees.

With its ban on five neonicotinoids outdoors and in greenhouses, France 
went further than the European Union, which agreed to outlaw three in 
crop fields. 
<https://www.dw.com/en/eu-court-upholds-ban-on-pesticides-threatening-bees/a-43821344>

Opponents of the ban have said that it prevents farmers from protecting 
their sugar beet crops, which have been decimated by an infestation of 
green aphids. Sugar beet farmers argue that neonicotinoid chemicals are 
the only solution to combating such infestations.


      A Ban 'Incompatible With EU Regulations'

The Crop Protection Association brought the case to court, arguing that 
the French decree was incompatible with an EU regulation on the family 
of chemicals.

The French government has since rowed back on parts of the controversial 
ban following pressure by beetroot growers.

However, on Thursday, the EU's top court ruled that France's initial ban 
had satisfactorily demonstrated the need to curb a "serious risk to 
human or animal health or to the environment."

Last week, the pesticides <https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides> were 
at the center of a legal battle between the French government and the 
left-wing and green opposition, which accuses President Emmanuel Macron 
of neglecting to fulfill his environmental commitments.

On Oct. 6, the French National Assembly approved a proposal to give 
beetroot growers an exemption from the ban on the pesticides until July 
2023.

France is Europe's top producer of beets used to make sugar and the 
sector provides 46,000 jobs.

Introduced in the mid-1990s, lab-synthesized neonicotinoids are based on 
the chemical structure of nicotine, and attack the central nervous 
system of insects.

They were meant to be a less harmful substitute to older pesticides, and 
are now the most widely-used to treat flowering crops. However, in 
recent years, bees started dying off from "colony collapse disorder," a 
mysterious disease partly blamed on the use of such chemicals.

Studies have since shown that neonicotinoids harm bee reproduction and 
foraging, while exposure also lowers their resistance to disease.

The UN has warned that nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly 
bees and butterflies, risk global extinction.

-- 
Dr. David W. Inouye
Professor Emeritus
Department of Biology
University of Maryland

Principal Investigator
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

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