Bayer loses EU case over chemicals blamed for killing honeybees

Brussels — Bayer has lost its fight to topple a EU ban on controversial insecticides that regulators blame for killing honeybees.

The EU Court of Justice dismissed the appeal on Thursday, finding there were no legal errors in the European Commission’s decision to impose restrictions on the substances’ use, based on concerns that the chemicals posed “high, acute risks for bees” and “the survival and development of colonies in several crops”.

Bayer and Syngenta in 2018 lost a first fight in court after telling judges that the EU ban on three neonicotinoids forced farmers to revert to potentially more harmful chemicals. Bayer appealed one more time.

The EU’s 2013 decision imposed limits on the use of three neonics — clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam — saying they were “harmful” to Europe’s honeybee population when used to treat flowering plants with nectar that attracts the insects.

The court said the commission “is entitled to consider that a risk to the colonies could not be ruled out” even if there is “scientific uncertainty at this stage as to the rate of mortality of individual bees”.

In 2018, EU governments voted in favour of widening the ban of neonicotinoids to apply everywhere, except for greenhouses. The commission has described the chemicals as “systemic”, causing the entire plant to become toxic to bees.

France, the EU’s top sugar exporter, partially lifted a ban on neonicotinoids last year by allowing its use for seed coatings for three years to 2023 after farmers suffered heavy losses from beet yellows virus spread by aphids that neonicotinoids help control.

The European Food Safety Authority in December said it will assess 21 emergency authorisations by EU nations to use neonicotinoids for sugar beet crop.

Bloomberg News. For more articles like this, please visit  Bloomberg.com