 Hello and welcome. I'm Lynne Fries, producer of Global Political Economy, or GPE, NewsDocs. In this segment, guest Lauren Gabrielle will discuss the new public eye investigative report that puts the crucial role of pollination and the global threat to biodiversity and food security posed by bee-killing pesticides in the spotlight. A report that for the first time reveals the full scale of the European Union export trade in bee-killing pesticides. The report chats light on the double standard that's been at play as the EU continues to export huge quantities of this pesticide despite having banned the use of these chemicals in their own fields. Our guest Lauren Gabrielle joins us from Public Eye in Lausanne, where he's an agriculture and food expert on the research and policy team. Public Eye is a Swiss not-for-profit organization with a long-standing record of fighting against injustice that has a significant link to Switzerland. Welcome, Lauren. Hello. So Lauren, we'll be talking about key findings of this new Public Eye report. Start briefly by first telling us something about Public Eye and also your own area of expertise on the research and policy team. From there, the collaboration between Public Eye and Unearthed in investigating Europe's export trade in banned pesticides, which I understand this report is the most recent collaboration. Yes, indeed. So you summarized it pretty well. Public Eye is a Swiss NGO acting as a watchdog, looking at what Swiss multinational companies and in general Swiss politics are doing abroad, mainly in poor countries of the global south. So we look at all the sectors, the economic sectors that are key in Switzerland such as the banking sector, the trading sector, the pharmaceutical companies and pesticides because in Switzerland we have the number one in the market, which is called Syngenta. So this is the reason why we are interested in the topic of pesticides. It's because in Switzerland we have the number one on the market. So I'm the food and agriculture expert at Public Eye dealing with this topic of pesticides, looking at Syngenta and its activities in developing countries. We've been looking now for several years at the topic of banned pesticides being sold or being sold abroad by Swiss companies or banned pesticides being exported from Switzerland or the European Union to poor countries. This new investigation on the export of banned neonicotinates from Europe is the latest in a series of investigations that we've done as a collaboration with Unearthed, which is the investigative unit of Greenpeace UK, looking at the export of banned pesticides from Europe. So this banned pesticide that we're talking about, I understand, is chemically related to nicotine and you get a clue of that from the name. Is that right? Completely right, yeah. It's from the same family. So we're talking about neonicotinates derived from the same family as nicotine, but in this case developed to act as insecticides to protect crops. This new investigation has for the first time revealed the full scale of the European Union's export trade in nicotinoids or neonics for short. Start by talking about what's been called out as a double standard in this EU export trade of these neonics and from there we'll get into some key findings of your investigation. This case of the neonics is really the strongest example of the double standard at play when it comes to regulating dangerous pesticides in the EU. Those insecticides were banned from all outdoor users in the Union in 2018 and then they were finally taken out of the market in 2020 because of the danger they pose to pollinators and bees. There was like a huge evidence of the well-being evidence of the impact that they can have on bees and pollinators. So the European Union decided to take them out of the market a few years ago already, but they keep allowing companies to produce those chemicals in Europe to export them to certain countries. So really the classical example of this double standard were you ban a dangerous pesticides in your own country because you consider it too dangerous but you keep exporting it to other countries. That's the double standard at play but I was saying this is the strongest example of this double standard because in this specific case of the Neonicotinates the European Commission considered them such a threat to pollinators worldwide and to food security that they even decided to act on the import of food made with those chemicals. So in February this year the European Commission decided to ban to lower down to zero the residue limit for Neonicotinates in food and what does that mean? It means basically that you're not allowed anymore to export to the European Union foods that contain residue of Neonicotinates and the European Commission in its own decision to ban those residue said that there's a big problem with the decline of pollinators worldwide that the decline of pollinators represents a threat to food security because they are pollinating crops and that there's large evidence that Neonicotinates play a key role in the decline of bees and pollinators worldwide and so the European Union needs to take action and it's not enough to ban those pesticides in the Union but the European Union the threat is so big that the Union needs also to act on the import to make sure that no food that is consumed in the European Union was made with those beckoning pesticides so that was quite a strong decision that was made by the European Commission in February this year showing it shows you how big of a threat the Commission those Neonics represent in the view of the Commission but at the same time what we are showing in this investigation is that the European Union keeps exporting those pesticides to third countries so they ban the use of those pesticides in the Union to protect bees they even ban the import of foods made with those pesticides to protect bees and pollinators but they keep allowing the export from the European Union to other countries so what kind of volume are we talking about here and what companies and countries have you identified as involved in this EU export of banned beckoning pesticides so here what we found is that in 2021 the European Union approved the export of more than 13,000 tons of banned Neonicotinates to give you an idea of what this represents this is massive it amounts about to 15 to 20% of the global use of those chemicals so the amount that was exported from the EU in 2021 represents about 15 to 20% of the global use of those chemicals so what are the key companies what we found is that yeah you have a number of companies involved but this one single company that alone account for more than 80% of the exports and this company is a syngenta Swiss based syngenta but you have also a number of other companies like Bayer, BSF and smaller or medium-sized company like Goan, FMC, NuFarm, UPL, Beluga and others so we're talking about a dozen of companies that are shipping banned Neonix from the European Union in terms of countries exporting countries it's basically from everywhere we could identify certain countries certain different countries members of the European Union that have notified exports of banned Neonix in 2021 now I'm saying certain countries but there's a small number of countries again that are responsible for most of the exports Belgium is the number one exporter followed by France, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain and together those five countries they amount for the vast majority of the volumes coming out of the Union in 2021. In terms of EU exporting countries as you say five countries exported the vast bulk of banned Neonix so on the import side where did these EU exports go? What we found is that the vast majority of those exports were going to low or middle-income countries such as Brazil, Ukraine, Indonesia, South Africa, Argentina but also a number of African countries. Talk about the case of Brazil as an importing country at the receiving end of these EU exports. Well Brazil was the main destination of the EU exports of banned pesticides in fact Brazil alone received about half of the volumes exported from the EU more than 6,000 tons of banned Neonix were exported by the EU to Brazil in 2021 in fact the vast majority of those 6,000 tons were one single export made by Sinjenta from Belgium of a product called NGO Pleno S and just to give you an idea what this represents this 6,000 tons represent enough to spray the entire area of New Zealand. It also it's also enough to spray seven to ten times the entire surface of Belgium so it's huge we're talking about huge amounts. Those Neonix were banned in Europe considered too dangerous here right so it is in our view wrong to send them abroad but in this case there is two aggravating factors and the aggravating factor is that we're shipping it to low and middle-income countries where we know the regulations are weaker and the risks will be higher right so the risk of pollinators and bees dying because of exposure to Neonix will be even higher in those countries like Brazil, Argentina or South Africa or Ghana than in the EU and another aggravating factor is that those countries are also home to some of the largest amount of biodiversity so we're talking about countries that are mega diverse I think that's the that's the that's the word they're using we're talking about mega diverse countries that have a lot of insects of pollinating insects or bees a variety of bees and that makes them more sensitive that makes them more vulnerable and so the impact in those countries will be much higher no so just to summarize again two aggravating factors one the countries to which the EU is exporting those pesticides have weaker regulation weaker control measures in place and the risks will be higher but second those are countries that are like main reservoir of biodiversity on earth like Brazil which is home of more than 20% of the world biodiversity so shipping shipping bee killing pesticides in those in in those countries really irresponsible so how are people in the importing countries responding to your findings given this is the first time the full scale and extent of EU exports of ban neonics and where they're going has been made public we've contacted beekeepers and campaigners in in importing countries to to get the view to see what they were thinking about those findings that the EU keeps exporting those ban neonics and they were quite shocked because the EU has this reputation of of of being a leading player when it comes to chemical safety the EU says that it wants to lead by example globally and it is believed to be the global standard when it comes to chemical regulation globally so there's a sense of hypocrisy also double standard that the EU is shipping to their countries pesticides that the EU knows will kill bees when we talk to beekeepers in Argentina in Argentina there's really a serious problem with the decline of pollinators and bees it seems they've lost about 30% of their bees in the past decade so that it's really massive that you have a number of cases of millions of bee dying in several parts of the countries and they've been able to link those cases most of the cases at least with the use of neonics right in the country and so when we asked the the society for beekeepers in Argentina what they were thinking about the findings of our research they were quite shocked by the fact that the EU was involved in the the massive decline of pollinators that they're facing in Argentina they said that neonics represent a very serious threat to their food security and they called the EU to immediately stop the export of those hazardous chemicals so most of the NGOs and experts that we've interviewed in South Africa or Argentina or Brazil they call this a double standard and they call this an irresponsible practice from the EU and they hope that you will take the lead in that regard and stop those exports I just briefly refer to the map of Europe provided in the report and in that map the 13 EU countries you identified as exporting banned neonica to noids in 2021 are indicated by a color coding of pink and to recap your earlier comment five of those countries were responsible for most neonics exported in 2021 from the EU Belgium was the number one exporting country followed by France the Netherlands Germany and Spain and as you noted one single export made by Sinjenta from Belgium was big enough to cover the surface of New Zealand talk more about what your investigation of EU exports of neonics reveals about Sinjenta as we know from your opening comments pesticides are an important topic at public eye because Sinjenta is headquartered in Switzerland and since Switzerland is not a member state of the European Union we should note that like other non-EU countries Switzerland as an exporter or non-exporter of neonics is not covered in this study and so as a non-EU country Switzerland is color coded gray in in this map okay yeah Switzerland is indeed is in gray in the in this map because it's not an EU member but also because in the in Switzerland in fact neonic grenades are not yet subject to this regulation on the export of banned pesticides so basically companies can export neonics from Switzerland freely without even notifying the importing country but yes the investigation was really focused on the EU as a group on the EU's export of banned neonics we mentioned before that Sinjenta is the leading company exporting from Europe it alone is exported more than 80% of all the volumes and what's more we are speaking only about the EU exports here Sinjenta has a lot of factories in many many European countries in which they manufacture either the neonics themselves or products based on the neonics and Sinjenta is nearly exclusively shipping one specific neonic which is called time at oxham and again the company alone amount for account for more than 80% of the volumes but what I want to say is that in fact those numbers might well be an under estimate of the real Sinjenta exports of banned neonics from Europe because it doesn't include exports from Switzerland which might play a leading role in this trade but we have no clue about the exact scale and extent of those exports because neonics are not yet subject to the peak regulation in Switzerland explain how prior informed consent or pick regulation works so that we can all understand why you were able to analyze neonics that were produced and exported by Sinjenta's EU based factories like its EU subsidiary in Belgium but not by Sinjenta Switzerland so start how pick regulation works in the European Union and then we can get into the point that neonics are not yet subject to pick regulation in Switzerland so what happens in the European Union but also in Switzerland is that when pesticide is judged too dangerous for use in its own territory the chemical will be banned right but the band will only apply to the use in the European Union and companies remain free to produce the chemical for export right but in that situation there is a piece of legislation called the pick regulation which is the prior informed consent regulation this is the regulation implementing the Rotterdam Convention in the European Union and under this regulation places some obligation on companies wanting to export banned chemicals abroad right it doesn't apply only to pesticides but it applies in general to hazardous chemicals that have been banned in the European Union or in Switzerland so if a company wants to export a pesticide that has been banned in the European Union it can do so but it needs to find a formula which is called an export notification in which it will basically indicate the name of the countries to which it is shipping those pesticides the volumes but also the intended use that will be made of those chemicals and those notifications are then sent by the company to the country to the government in the Union who will transmit those documents to the important country and the idea behind the system is that countries abroad are informed about the export of dangerous pesticide or dangerous chemicals to their country so that that's really the the reasoning behind this legislation is that at the minimum countries need to be informed so those exports have remained secrets for a long time because there is no public data allowing someone to just trace those exports see the volumes at stake and where they're going so last year with together with unearthed which is the investigative unit of Greenpeace UK what we did was to send requests freedom of information requests to the European Chemical Agency but also to several national governments requesting basically all the export notifications that was sent in 2021 for export of one of those three neonicotinates that were banned in the EU and it took us several months to get all of those documents because you have hundreds of them and each time the regulator need to get the consent of the company before releasing the data at least they need to consult them and allow them sufficient time to reply so that is why it takes such a long time but after several months of work we were able to obtain all the export notification for one single year 21 for those banned neonics and what we did then was to analyze the notification one by one and keep only those exports for use in agriculture in those countries because we have to be aware that pesticides can have multiple use one is the most famous one which is crop protection plant protection agriculture but pesticides can also be used in other contexts such as vector control for malaria control or for example as a color for dogs or bioscience okay and those users might be still allowed in the EU so what we had to do as a second step was to basically identified those notification in which the intended use was crop protection and after several months of work we were able for the first time to reveal the full scale of one year of exports of banned neonics from the EU that then explains the long story behind the source credited on maps you produce that source being to quote public eye and unearthed analysis of data submitted to the European Chemical Agency in 2021 you've yet to do an equivalent analysis on Swiss exports of neonic so explain that yeah so Switzerland has banned the use of the neonics but what they haven't done is to list the neonics in the export regulation in the regulation dealing with the export of hazardous chemicals and as neonics are not listed in that regulation they're not subject to the regulation and therefore they can be exported without any control from Switzerland so we have basically no clue what's coming out of Switzerland and it's possible that Switzerland plays a key role in this trade since Jenta has in Switzerland one of its biggest factory in the world in Monta and we know that they are making neonics in Monta but we have no clue about the the scale and the volumes that go out of Monta because basically the list of chemicals subject to a the export regulation in Switzerland is outdated the last time it was updated was three years ago and so all of the pesticides that were banned in the last four years have not yet been listed in this regulation and can still be exported freely out of Switzerland okay in Europe that's the mechanism now that's how it works in the EU you have a regulation as well dealing with the export of hazardous chemicals this is the peak regulation but if you want a chemical to be subject to that regulation you need to include it in the list of chemical subject to the regulation right and in the EU this is done every year quite well quite mechanically so every year basically what they do is they take all the pesticides and other chemicals that were banned during the the last 12 months and they include them in the list of chemicals subject to the peak regulation in Switzerland we have a problem at that in that regard which is that the update of the list is not being done every year as in the EU but it's been done every four five or even six years meaning that during all this period of time the pesticides can still be exported without any control the obligation for companies to send export notification applies only the chemical is listed in the peak regulation and you need to list it but if you don't do that then the chemical can still freely be exported in Switzerland what they told us is that they are planning to update the list soon but soon in Swiss times no meaning that they plan to release a draft update for the end of this year that would come into force in 2025 so what that means is that during the next two years companies will be able to keep exporting freely those chemicals from Switzerland without any control and without even needing to notify those exports to the Swiss government we know that a number of other countries are in the world also exporting those nonics like the USA China or even India but we don't have any data because in order to get the data you need to have this regulation in place which is in place in the European Union and that's a positive thing that the European Union has this legislation in place that at least put some minimum obligation on company wanting to export because it enable us to to get the data huh if you don't have this obligation then company do not need to set export notification and then you don't get to see the volumes that go out of the countries so with this investigation we are not saying that the EU is the only bad guy in the world is the only exporter of banned neonics no there's a number of countries that play a leading role in this trade including probably Switzerland but the EU is the only region for which we were able to get strong and comprehensive data for one single year having said that it's a positive thing the EU has this legislation in place for the reasons you stated explain why in your view this is not enough in our view this does does not go far enough of course it's the first interesting step to inform the country I'd say it's a it's the minimum no it's a it's a it's a pesticide that was banned in the European Union so at the minimum you inform the country that you are exporting to its territory that's that's to me the minimum but it's not enough because what we are seeing is that in fact it's a mechanism that allows the export under certain conditions and those chemicals that were considered too dangerous for use in the Union they will provoke in those countries the same harm that they have provoked in the European Union so in our view there should be no such system because if the EU considers those chemicals too dangerous for use in the Union they should not ship them outside because they know they are aware of the risk and they are aware of the fact that those risks are not manageable in fact whatever you do they're not manageable and that's the reason why they were taken out of the market in the European Union so being aware of those risk and being being aware of the fact that in fact whatever the capacities the control measures the resource that you put in place you will not be able to mitigate those risks and ensure that the pesticides can be safely used if you're aware of this you should just stop the export so what's the state of play at the European Commission on all this the current practice is to inform countries right and that's the defense that the European Commission used to have and also that many companies exporting companies use no they are basically saying oh but we provide them the information and they are sovereign countries and they have the right to decide what they want to import or what they want to use in their countries the mood has changed a lot in the EU because governments and the European Commission used to hide behind this argument that we are providing information to those countries and the sovereign countries that have a right to decide what they want to use and import right but that has changed a lot and I think partly because of the scandal that those that past investigation have created in EU because I think EU citizens just do not accept this practice and people in importing countries don't accept this double standard so the European Commission has committed to end this practice this came this commitment came in 2020 in October in the chemical strategy they said that they want to come up with a proposal to prohibit this practice of companies exporting abroad chemicals that are banned in the EU so that was really a good step that was made in 2020 by the Commission the European Commission has said that it would come up until the end of this year 2023 with a proposal to ban those exports and in fact the Commission has just launched public consultation and impact assessment to identify different scenarios for this export ban and we expect the Commission to publish a proposal in autumn this year as these public consultations and impact assessments are underway what in your view are some key things to bear in mind and assessing the impact of an EU export ban on new nix first from the perspective of the exporting country so the EU and let's take the impact on jobs in the economy in Europe which will be a big topic what are some of your thoughts there what we have seen is that in fact the impact of an export ban in Europe on employment and on the economy will be pretty limited and there's one main piece of evidence for that which is the the French export ban so France has an export ban for banned pesticides which is in place since last year it came into force in January 22 and we did an investigation last year to look at the impact of this export ban the export ban managed to stop most of the exports although some exports are still taking place because of two loopholes in the export ban but I'd say that about three-quarter of the volumes that were previously exported from France were not longer exported last year right so the export ban had an impact in France now there was a study looking at the impact on employment and jobs and in fact during the hot phase when the French export ban was discussed the industry released very exaggerated figures about the impact that this would have on employment speaking about icing 2700 jobs that would be at risk if France would ban the export of banned pesticides and then one year later one investigative journalist took a look at the impact and found absolutely no impact no evidence of any job that was lost because of the French export ban and a group of NGOs now filed a complaint to the Senate to the French Senate and the French Senate said send them how you call that a warning to the pesticide industry in France recognizing that in fact the numbers that were provided by the industry were very exaggerated so that is basically the same strategy that the industry now is using at the EU level there they are exaggerating a lot the potential impact of this export ban could have on the industry providing huge figures for the number of jobs that are at risk and from the perspective of the importing countries what's your assessment on how big an impact an EU export ban on the impacts would be there the impact in importing countries will be quite large in fact because the EU is one of the main producing place for chemicals around the world and the EU is even one of the main pesticide exporter around the world so if you change the rules here this will have quite some impact in those countries of course you could argue that those countries will still be free to buy from somewhere else right but it gives a strong signal right and it gives a strong signal a political signal that all the countries will follow and ultimately those chemicals will be hopefully taken out of the market globally right it's a first step so not pretending that we are going to resolve all the problems with this export ban right it's a first step but it's the first very important step it's about getting things right doing things in an ethical manner leading by example leading by example that is this is what the EU wants to do lead by example and then lead other countries to follow its own example and ultimately this will be very beneficial for the environment and human health globally and concluding thought the findings of this investigation are very serious because we are facing a mass extinction of insects globally really a massive decline of insects and pollinators that the food an agricultural organization has called a massive threat to food security because two-thirds of the world food crops are pollinated by bees and other insects so it's not just about bees or insects but it's about food security and food production and we're facing this massive wave of extinction and we know that one of the key factor behind this decline are neonics. Lauren Gabriel thank you. Thank you. And from Geneva Switzerland thank you for viewing this segment of GPE News Docs with guest Lauren Gabriel discussing public eyes 2023 investigative report on EU exports of banned bee killing pesticides. The report published by Public Eye in collaboration with Unearth was published May 17th and is available online at www.publiceye.ch