Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-19-Speech-3-422"
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"en.20081119.27.3-422"2
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"Madam President, I would also pay tribute to Mme Lulling, who has been tenacious to say the least in promoting and bringing this issue to the floor of the Parliament. Commissioner, I would also thank you for an impressive list of activities that the Commission is undertaking into this grave issue and, if anything, I think we are looking for a greater degree of funding and coordination as well. There is a risk that different bits of the institutions are doing a lot of good work but we do not necessarily tie it together. I think that is where this debate can shed some light.
It is a serious issue. The miners of old took canaries down into the mines with them to warn of poisonous gases. They warned of poisonous gases by dying. That was bad news for the canaries but good news for the miners. Our concern is that the bees of Europe are doing essentially the same sort of service for us. A third of the EU’s food – one in three mouthfuls of food – can be linked to bee pollination.
There is a catastrophic decline in bees, and we must take action at European level. Scientists are agreed that there has been a decline. We have heard already how severe it has been, but we are less clear as to what has caused it. Is it the use of pesticides? Is it climatic conditions? Is it parasites and mites and other diseases, perhaps beyond our control?
Commissioner, I would also mention to you specifically the Bumblebee Conservation Trust at Stirling University in Scotland which has done groundbreaking work into this. Europe is not short of expertise. What we need to do is to tie it together. I think the text before us has a number of concrete actions which would take us in that direction – particularly apicultural set-aside, biodiversity zones, even alongside roads and unproductive land, research on pesticides, surface water and consideration of aid.
As we have heard already, if we can find a billion euros to inflict on African development, I think we can find money to fund our own research. It is right that we see EU action on this and – dare I say – this does constitute a pretty coherent plan B, where plan A, the common European agricultural policy, has failed Europe’s bees. I do think we need to see a greater complementarity of actions already on-going to alleviate that situation."@en1
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