Editorial - Pesticides News No. 38

The UK government takes over the Presidency of the European Union (EU) from 1 January 1998. The administration is only six months old, and much is expected from it. It has already demonstrated that it will be much more pro-European than the former government. There is no shortage of urgent items on the EU agenda-the proposed enlargement of the Community, reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), climate change after Kyoto, the Biodiversity Convention and many others. What will be New Labour's priorities in terms of pesticides, agriculture and the environment during the Presidency?
    CAP reform is an obvious candidate, as the Agriculture Minister Jeff Rooker indicates in his interview in this issue. The proposals of President Jacques Santer set out in Agenda 2000 envisage new objectives for CAP:

• increased competitiveness

• food safety and food quality

• a fair standard of living for the agricultural community

• integration of environmental grants into CAP

• promotion of sustainable agriculture

• creation of alternative jobs and income opportunities for farmers

• simplification of EU legislation.

The environment does not feature strongly in Agenda 2000; although Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has promised that the UK government would 'bring environmental considerations into the centre of the EU's decision-making process, not keep them as an afterthought.' Perhaps we can hope then for decoupling of agricultural support from production and increasing payment for environmental management of land, and an increase in support for agri-environment schemes to substantially more than the current 4.1% of CAP funding.
    We would also look for progress in the EU's Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products process. This is a dialogue between the Commission and member states, in which there is an attempt to square the circle and to resolve the contradiction between the policy of intensive pesticide inputs supported by DGVI (Agriculture) of the Commission under CAP, and the pollution reduction aims of DGXI (Environment) under its Fifth Environment Action Plan.
    The Framework Water Directive is also due for discussion, and the current regime of protecting water from pesticide inputs should be maintained.
    A final and welcome hint was also dropped by Jeff Rooker, responding to the question of whether information on pesticide evaluations under the Registration Directive 91/414 would be made public. He indicated that, in terms of food safety and pesticides, the UK would support freedom of access to information.
    We hope that in the months to come, we can look back on the UK Presidency as a time of progress that will make up for past inertia. And Austria, well known for its views on pesticide restriction and its support for organic farming, then succeeds the UK.  

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 38, December 1997, page 2]