Insecticides Killing Bees Officially Banned by the European Union

"We can't continue to jeopardize pollinator populations." As Michael Gove announced the ban on bee-killing pesticides in 2018, he said this.

In 2013, the European Commission imposed restrictions on the use of neonicotinoids, prohibiting them from being used on rice, rapeseed, and other spring cereals. Other crops, such as sugar beet, may also benefit from them.

Because of the destruction of bee colonies owing to pesticide misuse, the commission had inspected the permissions.

Bayer said that modern scientific information was insufficient to explain the restrictions. The EU's top court denied the appeal on Thursday, ordering Bayer to pay its own expenses as well as those of other parties.

Greenpeace legal analyst Andrea Carta said, "The court of justice has reaffirmed that defending biodiversity and people's welfare takes priority over the limited commercial interests of dominant multinationals."

Farmers would return to older pesticides and expand spraying if the insecticides were banned, according to Bayer and ChemChina-owned Syngenta.

Emergency Authorizations

Despite the ban, emergency authorizations for the substances' use in the EU were issued between 2013 and 2019. Last year, EU auditors stated that this pesticide use, though lawful, was believed to be the cause of honeybee losses.

To protect bees, the European Commission has suggested goals of halving the use of chemical pesticides in the EU by 2030 and reducing fertilizer use by 20%.

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