The Commission would save EU agriculture in an unexpected way

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By RockedBuzz 4 Min Read
Sustainable Tech 2023
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In a statement, the EU commission wrote: the one million signatures collected as part of the initiative are a signal to EU co-legislators that environmental protection ambitions must be maintained.

Among other things, the citizens’ initiative focuses on making the promotion of biological diversity a general goal of the common agricultural policy. It makes a proposal to significantly reduce the use of plant protection agents, to ban harmful plant protection agents without exception and to reform the eligibility criteria. Its goals include promoting the structural diversity of agricultural land, effectively reducing the amount of nutrients, effectively creating nature conservation areas, enhancing research and monitoring, and improving education.

The European Commission pointed out that the challenges related to European agriculture and food security are becoming increasingly acute due to interconnected crises, including climate change, environmental pollution and the loss of biodiversity. In the EU, the number of bees, butterflies and hummingbirds in every third species is decreasing, even though 80 percent of cultivated and wild flowering plants depend on animal pollination. Half of the agricultural land in the EU is already threatened by the lack of pollination. If the existence of pollinators is in danger, it also threatens food security and life on the planet, they wrote.

The success of the ECI is a clear indication of broad public support for action for pollinators, biodiversity and sustainable agriculture

– they said.

In this context, the committee asked the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union to conclude agreements in response to the legislative proposals, which will promote the protection of European pollinators and the recovery of their populations.

The committee emphasized in its statement: instead of proposals for new legislation, the most important thing now is that the proposals currently under discussion be accepted by the co-legislators and then implemented in a timely manner.

The European citizens’ initiative called Save the bees, aimed at protecting biodiversity and improving insect habitats, was registered by the EU Commission in May 2019. After that, the organizers had a one-year period to collect supporting signatures. The period was extended due to the coronavirus epidemic.

According to the rules of the European citizens’ initiative, if an initiative receives one million statements of support from at least seven different member states within a year, the European Commission will examine it and react to it within three months. You can decide whether to approve the request, and you must justify your decision in each case.

The European citizens’ initiative must not fall outside the competence of the committee to submit a proposal for an EU legal act, must not be obviously abusive, frivolous or harassing, and must not be contrary to the values ​​of the union.

Cover image: Getty Images

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