Anthea McIntyre, on behalf of the ECR Group. – Mr President, the EU’s approval process for plant protection products is one of the most stringent systems in the world, yet to read the PEST Committee’s report you really wouldn’t think so. Despite hearing from a range of experts and authorities, the report has been prepared in a very selective manner with many of these experts’ contributions being intentionally disregarded. The content doesn’t reflect the opinions we heard, instead it regurgitates the same beliefs and myths that we heard at the start of the process, even when these have been clearly and unanimously dispelled by experts: a supposed weakness of the rapporteur Member State system, allegations of plagiarism in assessment documentation, apparent failures of the zonal system... these have all been shown to be wide of the mark by invited experts. Yet many of these remain deliberately uncontested in this report in order to provide a platform for campaigning MEPs ahead of the elections in May.

So the report is very disappointing and it reflects poorly on our institution, and that’s why we have presented plenary amendments to ensure that colleagues will be able to vote to support the real content of the committee hearings and not just the selected opinions of certain parliamentarians. We should support a fact-based and science-based approach to policy-making, and I hope that this Parliament will see the value of this approach and support the amendments presented by the ECR.

Our current system isn’t perfect, it can be improved. We can act to improve transparency, which the Commission has already done in its proposal to revise the general food law. We can encourage innovation. We can support the development of new farming techniques which reduce pesticide use, and new active substances which will make older, more persistent, chemistry obsolete.

The invited expert from Greenpeace said at the final hearing that it’s not flaws in the legislation that we need to address, but rather it is improvements to the implementation that are needed.

So this report must strike a balance of opinion which reflects the objectives of the regulation and the breadth of the expert testimony, even where this is inconvenient for some political groups and campaigners.