On Monday 27 April in Luxembourg, in a note for the delegations, the agriculture ministers of eleven European Union Member States (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland and Portugal) called for a reduction in the new European record-keeping obligations relating to the use of plant protection products.
On the initiative of the German minister, Alois Rainer, these Member States denounce the additional administrative burden created by implementing regulation 2023/564, which came into force on 1 January 2026. This text requires professional users to record new information, including the product authorisation number, EPPO references (used to identify crops, pests and pathogens) and the BBCH stage (a standardised scale describing the development phases of cultivated plants).
While the ministers recognise the relevance of the objective pursued by the European Commission, namely the harmonisation of the data collected and the introduction of common units of measurement for the quantities used, they consider that some of the information required is “not necessary” for regulatory controls.
In their view, these new obligations represent a heavy bureaucratic burden for farmers, who are forced to search for and record data that was not previously required. This constraint is seen as particularly penalising for specialist farms (particularly vegetable farms or tree nurseries) which grow and treat a large number of different crops at the same time.
The signatory countries are therefore calling for an in-depth debate to simplify these requirements and ensure that they are proportionate. Romania and Slovenia have also expressed their support for this approach.
In response, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Christophe Hansen, pointed out that the implementing regulation requires professional users to indicate, where appropriate, the names of crops in accordance with EPPO references, and not the codes themselves. Similarly, where relevant, the stage of development should be mentioned according to the BBCH classification, without the codes having to be used. Mr Hansen also pointed out that the text obliges Member States to support professional users in keeping registers, and that there is “no expectation” that farmers will use technical codes, as they can use the common names of crops.
Link to the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/lpr (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)