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We are delighted to share that the Renew Europe Action Plan for a sustainable, competitive and fairly rewarded EU agriculture includes proposals for biocontrol in line with some IBMA recommendations.
The Action Plan proposes several actions in response to farmers protests and issues of concern, both in the short and medium/long term. It is mainly addressing the European Commission and reflects some IBMA recommendations.
Particularly, with regards to biocontrol, the Plan proposes:
In the short term, to improve the approval procedure for active substances in PPPs and promote the uptake of low-risk alternatives through concrete steps
- Increase resource allocation for EFSA, the European Commission and Member States (MSs)’ national authorities to enable a greater number of authorisations per year
- Require MSs to set up a dedicated lane for the authorisation of biocontrol products
- Enable provisional authorisation for low-risk PPPs and biocontrol products in cases where the procedure has not yet been completed but is expected to be favourable
- Set strict assessment deadlines for MSs’ competent authorities – particularly, 12 months for ordinary active substances and 6 months for biocontrol
- Publish guidance documents on the application procedure to approve biocontrol substances as well as on the missing data related to biocontrol subcategories covered by the European Commission
- In the medium/long term, to ensure that the future proposal for a Regulation on the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products (SUR) is prepared in full cooperation with farmers, in order to establish a realistic framework that ensures a balance between environmental protection and agricultural activities.
These positive results can be attributed to the work of IBMA throughout the different European Institutions over the last months. It is worth noting that some of these measures are in line with IBMA views and asks built upon European Parliament amendments that received wide support across all political groups.In particular, the creation of a green priority lane and grant of provisional authorisation for biocontrol. Furthermore, it is also important that other favourable measures are explicitly mentioned, such as increased EFSA funding, strict deadlines for the assessment of biocontrol (6 months), and guidance documents by the European Commission for the application of biocontrol authorisations.
Read the full Renew Action Plan.