Bayer Loses Fight Over Chemicals EU Blamed For Killing Bees

Bayer AG lost its fight to topple a European Union ban on controversial insecticides that regulators blame for killing honeybees. Bloomberg reports: The EU Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, 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 AG in 2018 already lost a first round in court after telling judges that the EU ban on three so-called neonicotinoids forced farmers to revert to potentially more harmful chemicals. Bayer appealed one more time.

The EU's decision five years earlier imposed limits on the use of three neonics -- clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam -- saying they were 'harmful' to Europe's honeybee population when used to treat flowering plants with nectar that attracts the insects. The court ruled on Thursday 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.' EU governments in 2018 voted in favor 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.

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