On Tuesday 5 March, the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council and negotiators from the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a targeted revision of the Plant Health Law (Regulation (EU) 2016/2031). The aim is to improve and rationalise the application of and compliance with the regulation.
The Council and Parliament strengthened the Commission’s proposal by providing for the creation of a Union plant health emergency team (see EUROPE 13350/16). It will be made up of experts appointed by the Commission, on the basis of proposals from the Member States, who should have different specialities in the field of plant health and would be able to provide assistance in the event of new outbreaks of harmful organisms in the EU. The experts will also be able to provide bordering third countries with urgent assistance and expertise in the event of epidemics likely to affect the EU, if one or more Member States so request.
In addition, the co-legislators have decided to increase the duration of multiannual survey programmes in favour of risk-based surveys that guarantee rapid detection of dangerous harmful organisms. They will now have to be drawn up for a period of five to ten years, instead of the current period of five to seven years. These programmes will have to be reviewed and updated according to the plant health situation, to ensure that pests are detected quickly.
Under the agreed text, importers to the EU will be obliged to declare in a phytosanitary certificate the measures they have taken to ensure compliance with pest quarantine rules, not only for EU quarantine pests, but also for ‘regulated non-quarantine pests’.
The Commission may decide, by means of implementing acts, which plants, plant products or other objects may travel without a plant passport being physically attached. Instead, they would be associated with the plant passport in a way other than the physical link.
The agreement must now be formally approved by the European Parliament and the Council.
To see the Commission’s initial proposal, go to https://aeur.eu/f/b6a (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)