21. Calls on the Commission to work out more flexible rules for the authorisation and availability of veterinary products for honeybees, including medicines of natural origin and others that do not have health effects on insects; welcomes the Commission's proposal on the revision of the veterinary medicinal product directive, but notes that the current limited availability of such products should not be used as a basis for the registration/marketing of antibiotics to treat other opportunistic pathologies in honeybee colonies, given their impacts on the quality of bee products and resistance;

44. Calls on the Commission to clarify, in the forthcoming reform of the CAP, the support measures and aid to be assigned to the European beekeeping sector, taking account of the environmental and social public goods that honeybee colonies provide via pollination and of the environmental service performed by beekeepers in managing their bee colonies;

21. Calls on the Commission to work out more flexible rules for the authorisation and availability of veterinary products for honeybees, including medicines of natural origin and others that do not have health effects on insects; welcomes the Commission’s proposal on the revision of the veterinary medicinal product directive, but notes that the current limited availability of such products should not be used as a basis for the registration/marketing of antibiotics to treat other opportunistic pathologies in honeybee colonies, given their impacts on the quality of bee products and resistance;

31. Considers it essential to provide more training for beekeepers in all the Member States, given that honeybee management is in the hands of beekeepers and good bee management, in particular through the use of good practices and respect for the regulations in force, is crucial to bee health;

D. whereas agriculture has a major interest in maintaining bees as pollinators; whereas the FAO has alerted the international community to the alarming reduction in numbers of pollinating insects, including honey bees; whereas 84% of the plant species and 76% of food production in Europe are dependent on pollination by bees, the economic importance of which is much greater than the value of the honey produced,

(a) Live animals (including apiculture bees), embryos, ova, semen and animal products - US Department of Agriculture/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA/APHIS).