Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

ANIMAL

France to ban Swiss pesticide as bee threat

The French government is to ban a pesticide made by Swiss giant Syngenta used in rapeseed cultivation that has been found to shorten bees' lifespan, Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll said on Friday.

Published: 1 June 2012 14:00 CEST

France to ban Swiss pesticide as bee threat

Mario Alberto Magallanes Trejo

“I have warned the group that sells Cruiser that I envisage withdrawing the licence to market,” Le Foll said after the National Food, Environment and Work Safety Agency (ANSES) issued a damning report on the pesticide.

The Swiss chemical giant has 15 days to respond to the ANSES report’s conclusion that the pesticide shortens bees’ lifespans.

“ANSES’s report brings in new elements and clearly shows the harmful effect of this product on bees’ mortality and I want to take into account what has been said,” Le Foll said.

The minister said he would raise the possibility of a European Union-wide ban with the European Commission and the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA).

The ANSES report was called for in March after the journal Science published a French study demonstrating the harmful effects on bees of broad-spectrum insecticide thiamethoxam, found in Cruiser.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

READ ALSO:

The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa.

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology.

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces.

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

Url copied to clipboard!