STRASBOURG, Nov 22 — EU lawmakers today rejected a proposal to cut pesticide use by half by the end of the decade, dealing a blow to the bloc’s push towards more environmentally-friendly farming.

The full European Parliament shot down, in a 299-to-207 vote, a recommendation endorsed by its environment committee based on a text put forward by the European Commission in 2022.

The proposal called for a 50 per cent reduction in chemical pesticides by 2030 and a total ban in "sensitive areas” such as parks.

A French MEP with the leftwing Greens grouping, Marie Toussaint, said on social media that "the right and the extreme right torpedoed adoption of the pesticide regulation”.

But a German lawmaker with the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), Peter Liese, said "today is a good day for farmers”.

The parliament also narrowly rejected a motion asking for the proposal to be returned to the environment committee for amendment, meaning the text was essentially finished under the current legislature’s mandate.

EU elections to choose a new European Parliament will take place in June next year.

The EPP and other right-leaning groups are keen to have farmers onside for the polls, creating tensions over the commission’s drive to put the bloc on the path to a carbon-neutral, more ecologically durable future.

Europe’s powerful agricultural lobby has come out against legislative measures crimping production.

A key biodiversity bill aimed at rewilding EU land and water habitats, which got initial agreement earlier this month, was watered down from the original text presented by the commission.

Christiane Lambert, head of French farmers’ umbrella body the FNSEA, said of the rejected pesticide bill: "At last, the European Parliament recognises that the pesticide regulation was poorly calibrated, unrealistic, unfinanced.” — AFP