“A Symbol of Polarisation?” - Understanding the Withdrawal of the Sustainable Use of Pesticide Regulation Through the Multiple Streams Framework

The Farm to Fork Strategy (F2FS) was widely regarded as a significant departure in European agricultural and environmental policy-making towards a sustainable food system approach. One of the flagships of the strategy was the Sustainable Use of Pesticide Regulation (SUR) which aimed to make the pesticide reduction targets of the F2FS binding. Yet, in March 2024, Ursula von der Leyen actively withdrew the proposal in response to widespread farmer protests in January 2024, and with the European Parliament rejecting the proposal, it was deemed as not progressing any further. She argued among others that the SUR had become emblematic of a polarised debate in which environmental and sustainability measures were played against food security concerns. This paper seeks to examine the policy process of the SUR, tracing the Commission’s proposal to its final withdrawal to understand the factors behind the shift from a spirit of optimism to a sense of resignation in European food system policy-making. Therefore, expert interviews with members of the policy community (MEPs, civil servants, member states and interest groups) were conducted and combined with document analysis. By applying the modified Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) adapted to parliamentary systems (Herweg et al, 2015), the analysis investigates why the window of opportunity for transformative food system legislation did not remain open during the decision-making process. The MSF framework conceptualises policy systems as organised anarchies, where decisions are shaped by ambiguity, conflicting preferences, unclear technologies, and fluid participation. This approach helps illuminate how shifts in the ideas and priorities of policymakers after setting the agenda influence the coupling of the political, policy, and problem streams during decision-making. Utilizing this theoretical lens, I aim to identify the focusing events and influencing factors that heightened polarisation around the proposal, triggered shifts in policy priorities, and/or may have jeopardised the re-election prospects of politicians. This will be embedded into the institutional settings of the European Union decision-making procedures. Ultimately, this analysis contributes conceptually to the further development of the MSF by exploring its applicability in studying policy adoption failures as there is an observed tendency in studying predominantly successful coupling in the literature.