While Europe focused on the triggering of Article 50, Jean-Claude Juncker was showing off his love of bees.
“I’m the best-known friend of the bees in Luxembourg,” the European Commission president proudly told his team of commissioners Wednesday, according to sources in the room, just hours before the U.K. officially informed the EU of its intention to leave the bloc.
Holding up a copy of the German comic book the Adventures of Maya the Bee, Juncker said “I’m the bees’ man,” adding that even though he is allergic to bees, “I want to protect them.”
Days before Juncker’s plea to save Europe’s beleaguered pollinators, the Commission president had made known his displeasure at press leaks of draft proposals to ban pesticides suspected of killing bees.
The leaking of a draft Commission proposal resulted in Juncker’s chief of staff, Martin Selmayr, embarking on a quest to take back political control of sensitive dossiers such as this one.
Shortly before the weekly college of commissioners meeting, Selmayr and Alexander Italianer, the European Commission’s secretary-general, informed senior staffers of new rules governing the sharing of draft legislation with committees and expert groups.
According to a copy of Selmayr’s note, obtained by POLITICO, such documents should no longer feature the logo of the European Commission and should come with a disclaimer on the cover page stating: “This draft has not been adopted or endorsed by the European Commission. Any views expressed are the preliminary views of the Commission services and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the Commission.”
Juncker’s decision to defend Europe’s threatened bee colonies began last weekend in Rome during celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the European Union. He was disturbed by news that draft proposals to ban three substances — Clothianidin, Imidacloprid and Thiamethoxam, which are already partially restricted in the EU pending further scientific study — had gained such significant public interest.
Alexander Winterstein, deputy chief spokesperson for the Commission, said at a press briefing in Brussels Wednesday that Juncker was not aware of the Commission’s draft proposals when they were leaked to the Guardian and POLITICO on Friday, “something that the commissioners and the president do not appreciate.”
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He said that there would be no position taken on whether or not to ban the pesticides — collectively known as neonicotinoids — until the college of commissioners had discussed and approved the draft legislation. “It’s in the college where decisions are taken,” Winterstein said.
The debate over neonicotinoids has gone on for years and came to a conclusion of sorts in 2013 when the Commission placed a moratorium on them after the European Food Safety Authority announced it had found “a number of risks” to bees.
Those claims are contested by pesticide companies, which say scientific evidence shows otherwise. The pesticide industry and farmers also complain that the ban has led to significant falls in crop yields and forced farms to use older, more toxic substances that could be even more harmful to bees.
The proposal will move on to a vote inside the Commission’s Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed. That could take place as early as May and several sources said they expected the Commission to reach the qualified majority needed to approve the ban.