FISCHERMÜHLE, Germany (NNA) – An alliance for the protection of bees has to raise 190,000 euros (£150,280, USD 236,000) in the next few weeks in order to continue the legal battle with the agro-chemical industry in the European Court of Justice (EJC).

“Bees urgently need your support!” the German BeeDefender Alliance writes in an appeal for donations. The Alliances comprises a group of beekeeping and ecological farming organisations including Mellifera e.V. – Centre for Organic Beekeeping, on whose website the appeal is hosted. To date 117,113 euros (£92,630, USD 145,520) have been collected in donations.

The legal action can only be continued if the money for incidental procedural costs – including for scientific research, lawyers, court and expert reports – can be found, the BeeDefender Alliance says. Otherwise “the agro-chemical companies will be free to impose their intentions at the EU level,” it emphasises.

Honey judgement

In the last two years, the Alliance was able to contribute to the success of two important decisions with EU-wide implications: in the so-called honey ruling of the ECJ the Alliance collected the financial resources and provided the legal expertise to ensure that German beekeeper Karl Heinz Bablok was able to protect his honey from contamination with pollen from genetically modified crops.

In the second case, the “extraordinary effort” of the Alliance, and of German beekeeper associations in particular, managed to obtain an EU-wide ban until December 2015 on neonicotinoids harmful to bees. The agro-chemical companies BASF, Syngenta and Bayer subsequently took the European Commission to court over its decision.

The beekeeper associations now want to intervene in this case to prevent the dispute being “resolved” behind closed doors at the cost of the bees and environment. As parties to the action they would be entitled to receive all the legal papers which the chemical conglomerates and the EU Commission do. But even just the application to become party to the action requires considerable competence and financial resources.

Battle for existence

“We are convinced that it is right, important and urgently necessary for us to fight for the bees on this front,” the Alliance writes in a press release. Because this was not just about the honey bees alone. The constant intensification of agricultural production with the use of pesticides such as neonicotinoids damaged the environment, accelerated the dramatic loss of species and “thus destroys the foundation of all our existence”.

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Item: 141215-02EN Date: 15 December 2014  

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