The EU Commission is two years late in reporting the status of the Sustainable Use Directive on Pesticides.

In 2009, The EU adopted the Sustainable Use Directive on Pesticides (SUDP). This EU law directed Member States to start reducing pesticide dependency as of 2011. As part of this law, the European Commission was required to submit a report to the Parliament and the Council evaluating the progress of Member States in meeting quantitative objectives, targets, measures and timetables for implementation as they transition from pesticide-dependant pest management to sustainable integrated pest management. This report was due 26 November 2014. We have now passed 26 November 2016, which means over two years delay, and this evaluation report has still not been published.

Independent analysis performed by PAN Europe has demonstrated that Member States’ ambition to reduce pesticide use is low. So far only two Member States - Denmark and France - have set overall quantitative reduction targets and timetables. Both Member States have introduced pesticide taxes but only Denmark has increased, reshaped and differentiated its pesticide tax to respond to actual environmental and health hazard rather than nominal value. The result is that the Danish pesticide reduction plan aiming at a 40% reduction of the “pesticide load” in 2015 compared to 2011 seems to have been fulfilled, while the French pesticide reduction plan remains unfulfilled.

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