On 17 December 2007, the Agriculture Council reached a political agreement on new EU rules governing pesticide use (European Commission proposal for a Directive on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides). Prior to the Council meeting, HEAL had sent letters to all EU Agriculture, Environment and Health Ministers highlighting the impact of pesticide use on people’s health, particularly on children’s health.

In their common position, EU agriculture ministers agreed on the following points:
 national authorities should be allowed to designate ’appropriately-sized’ buffer zones around bodies of water where pesticide use is prohibited;
 ban on aerial pesticide spraying, with certain derogations for Bulgaria and Romania, where geological and climatic conditions apparently leave few alternatives to aerial spraying;
 rejection of European Parliament calls for national reduction targets to halve the use of high risk and highly toxic pesticide by 2013;
 concerning the use of pesticides in certain public areas like parks and playgrounds, ministers backed the wording of the original Commission proposal, which says that the use of pesticides in sensitive areas "shall be prohibited or restricted to the minimum necessary", and rejected the new wording introduced by the Parliament calling for the prohibition of pesticide use in and around areas where children and other vulnerable groups spend most of their time.