Three years ago the European Union seemed to be getting serious about pesticides. Nearly 40% of the block’s citizens expressed concern over their presence in their food, and more than a million people were calling for a phaseout. In a sign of the times, the European Parliament was ready to vote on a bond Proposal Halving pesticide use by 2030 – taking the 2015–2017 average as a baseline.
“Without these changes, we risk pollinator and ecosystem collapse, which will have an even greater impact on food security and food prices,” Stella Kyriakides, former EU commissioner for health and food security, said at the time.
Fast forward to 2026, and the bloc has postponed mandatory curtailment regulation forever. Furthermore, in an effort to remove the regulatory burden for companies, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, is now considering permanently approving most pesticides.
The move to loosen controls has faced resistance from campaign groups. Manon Raubi of Pesticide Action Network International said it would “undermine the link between pesticide use and its impact on human health.”
DW has analyzed how pesticide use, sales and impacts evolved before and after the EU’s binding 50% reduction.
Historical use and sales of pesticides in the European Union
EU efforts to curb pesticide use date back to at least 2009, when the Union first adopted it. Order Promote sustainable practices. It suggested that substances should only be used as a last resort.
But the results remained limited. In 2020, the European Court of Auditors concluded that policy implementation was failing to achieve reduction targets. This finding prompted the European Commission to first propose a 50% mandatory reduction vote in 2023.
At that time and since, the EU has remained among the top 10 global pesticide users among major cropland countries. And this is despite an 18% decline compared to 2015 – based on estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
But at the national level it is a different picture. Since there is no comparable EU data on pesticide use per country, sales figures serve as a proxy. In 2024, the most recent year for which data exists, the top five purchasing countries showed an upward trend, with sales about 10% higher than in 2023 when the reduction target was still looming.
These five countries – Spain, France, Italy, Germany and Poland – which are also the EU’s top agricultural producers, accounted for 76% of total sales in 2024.
“The U-turn on policy priorities is a reflection of the EU in general being very reluctant to impose restrictions on farmers that come as a burden,” said Lindsay Hendricks-Franco, an environmental researcher at the German think tank Ekologik Institute. He said the use of non-binding targets is unlikely to decline.
Pesticide sales to rise in 2024, including risky types
Pesticide sales in several EU countries are projected to jump in 2024 compared to the average baseline of 2015-2017. In Bulgaria and Austria they increased by almost a quarter, but growth was weaker in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Sales fell in the 20 EU member states. Italy, the EU country with the highest reduction rate, reduced its sales by 33%.
While 14% less than 2015, a total of 2024 pesticides were sold 8% moreCompared to the previous year, when the mandatory reduction target was still under consideration.
Hendricks-Franco said that although pesticide sales probably would not have declined by 50% if mandatory reductions had been adopted, they probably would have decreased “by more than the current trend.”
The decline over the 2014–2024 decade was smaller for a subgroup of highly hazardous pesticides, known to have potentially harmful effects on people and the environment. By 2024, the most recent reporting year, sales of these hazardous substances had increased by 27% overall compared to the previous year – particularly due to increased sales in Spain, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia.
These chemicals also include glyphosate, a controversial pesticide that has been linked to increased cancer risk and miscarriage. When EU says The use of dangerous pesticides has decreased, with sales of glyphosate increasing by more than 44% between 2015 and 2024.
Risks of using pesticides
Since pesticide sales volumes do not include toxicity and application rates, it reveals little about the risks to people and the environment. pesticides have been added biodiversity loss and has been found extremely harmful For fish and other species.
When present in groundwater and soil, these chemicals harm bees, birds, and aquatic life. 2022 united nations report . Yet their residues in many European rivers far exceed EU safe limits established since 2000 for each individual pesticide.
Only Lithuania and Slovenia reported pesticides remaining within recommended levels in rivers in 2023. Sweden saw the largest reduction in remains. This doubled the recommended limit in 2018 – the first year with comparable data for most EU countries – and 7% above the limit five years later.
Over the same period, increases in concentrations were recorded in Denmark, Latvia and Hungary. In 2023, pesticide residues in rivers of these countries exceed safe limits by 50% or more.
Why was the 50% cut proposal not passed?
Against the backdrop of 19 of the EU’s 27 member states already exceeding pesticide limits set to protect the environment and human health, the European Parliament moved ahead with a November 2023 vote on a proposal to halve pesticide use in the future.
but this rejected299 votes were cast in opposition and 207 in favor. Those not supporting the proposal included the Greens and left-wing groups, who said the text was weakened in important areas.
“This was not a text for which we could vote in good conscience,” Austria’s Green Party MP Sara Wiener wrote in a press release at the time. He said it was “very weak. Especially when it comes to protecting public health and biodiversity as well as supporting farmers.”
Since that vote, the European Commission’s focus has shifted from reducing pesticides to reducing bureaucratic barriers for companies, for example by cutting administrative costs. At the end of 2025, they put a new proposal That table would include automatically approving most pesticides without reevaluating their safety after their initial approval period.
Hendrix-Franco of the Ecologic Institute said the idea means “pesticides that are riskier will remain on the market longer,” adding that it sends a message to the EU “that the health risks are no longer pressing.”
The European Commission has argued that a reduced regulatory burden would make it easier to put lower-risk pesticides on the market. And, commission spokeswoman Eva Hrancierova said, it would lead to a shift “away from more dangerous chemical substances.”
The EU is one of 196 signatories to the Global Biodiversity Framework, which has committed to halving environmental risks from pesticides by 2030.
“There are concerns and questions about how this is compatible with the new developments seen at the EU level,” said Ruby of the Pesticide Action Network.
Edited by: Gianna-Carina Gruen and Tamsin Walker
Fact Check: Eva Lopez
For the data, code, and methodology behind this analysis, Check out this GitHub repository. More data-driven stories can be found from DW Here.
This project was partially funded by European Data Journalism Network (EDJnet) In relation to chatEurope.