Plant health law: Council and Parliament strike deal to simplify and strengthen phytosanitary rules

07 Mar 2024 --- EU Council presidency and European Parliament representatives have reached a provisional agreement on a targeted revision of regulation (EU) 2016/2031, also known as the plant health law. This revision aims to improve and streamline the regulation’s application and enforcement.

“This targeted improvement of our existing plant health rules will ensure we continue to be well-equipped to face phytosanitary threats while simplifying the enforcement of our rules,” says David Clarinval, Belgian deputy prime minister and minister for the Self-Employed, SMEs and Agriculture, Institutional Reforms and Democratic Renewal.

“This, in turn, will cut red tape and reduce the administrative burden for operators and national authorities alike.”

Elements of provisional agreement

The provisionally agreed text reflects the overall goals of the Commission’s proposal. More specifically, the revised regulation aims to:

• Improve procedures for identifying and listing high-risk plants and for submitting and examining requests for temporary derogations from import obligations coming from non-EU countries
• Clarify measures for pests that qualify as quarantine pests but which have not yet been fully assessed
• Rationalize and simplify reporting obligations, thanks to increased digitalization; this will help cut red tape for the competent authorities, as well as for operators

Plant health emergency team
The two co-legislators further improved the Commission’s proposal by providing for the creation of a Union plant health emergency team.

The team would be made up of experts appointed by the Commission based on proposals from member states. These experts would have different specialties in the field of plant health and would be able to assist in the event of new pest outbreaks in the EU.

Additionally, they could provide bordering third countries with urgent assistance and expertise in the case of outbreaks that could affect the EU if this is requested by one or more member states.

Multiannual survey programs
In order to streamline reporting obligations, the co-legislators agreed to increase the duration of multiannual survey programs, which would now have to be established for a period of five to ten years instead of the current period of five to seven years. 

This will help reduce the administrative burden for the competent authorities.

To ensure the timely detection of pests, these programs are to be reviewed and updated depending on the phytosanitary situation.

Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 is currently the basic legal framework for the EU’s plant health policy.Plant passports
According to the provisionally agreed text, the Commission can decide via implementing acts which plants, plant products or other objects can travel without a plant passport physically attached to them because, for instance, of their size or their shape, which would make the attachment impossible or very difficult. 

These plants or plant products would instead have the plant passport associated with them in a way other than that of a physical attachment. This change to the current rules stems from the experience gained by operators in the implementation of the plant health law thus far.

Next steps
The provisional agreement will now have to be endorsed by the Council and the Parliament. It will then be formally adopted by both institutions following legal-linguistic revision.

Last November, Food Ingredients First reported that the European Parliament rejected the Commission’s proposal to reduce the sustainable use of plant protection products around Europe. This came a week after the use of the contentious chemical pesticide glyphosate in the 27-nation bloc was extended for ten more years. 

Edited by Elizabeth Green