At the Agriculture Council on Tuesday 23 September, Germany, supported by a group of countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), asked the European Commission to amend Article 23 of Regulation 1107/2009 on the placing of plant protection products on the market.
The ministers from these countries wanted the Commission to address the issue in the ‘omnibus’ regulation on food safety legislation, which should be presented by the end of 2025 (see EUROPE 13710/14).
The approval of an active substance that is identical to a basic substance that has already been approved should not prevent farmers from using this basic substance, explained the French delegation. Similarly, the approval of a plant protection product should not restrict the use of the same basic substance for other purposes.
The concern of these countries is that a basic substance, once approved, may lose certain authorised uses if it is subsequently approved as an active substance. The example of sodium hydrogen carbonate shows that winegrowers in Austria and Germany can no longer use the substance as a base and have to resort to more expensive plant protection products containing the same substance as an active ingredient.
The Member States concerned want all initially approved uses of a basic substance to be retained, even if this substance later becomes an active ingredient in an authorised product. Olivér Várhelyi, European Commissioner for Health, has promised to take these requests into account in the next ‘omnibus’ proposal.
The German document: https://aeur.eu/f/ikd (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)