According to the report to evaluate the systems in place for the authorisation of agrochemical products which published by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, the majority of Member States fail to use the zonal authorisation system as envisaged in the Regulation and fail to comply with almost all legal deadlines under the Regulation, by significant margins in many cases.

As a result, there is delayed or reduced access to new pest control tools for growers. In addition, the re-evaluation of plant protection products already on the market, in light of new scientific and technical knowledge, is delayed. Finally, delays in processing requests for authorisation also contribute to more emergency authorisations being granted by Member States, without a full evaluation being performed.

Co-operation, work-sharing and reliance on the evaluation work conducted by other Member States are the foundations of the zonal authorisation system. The main reasons why Member States fail to use the opportunities for work-sharing is Member States having specific national requirements and the lack of harmonisation in the methodologies used for conducting evaluations.

Good practices have been identified such as fast-tracking applications for low-risk and non-chemical plant protection products, prioritising authorisations for plant protection products on minor crops, and the use of customised information management systems to monitor compliance with deadlines and identify bottlenecks in the process.

Source:        European Commission