The Joint Evaluation Procedure for Active Substances contained in Plant Protection Products within the European Community – 10 Years of the ECCO-Project

Abstract

Plant protection products have had to be evaluated and authorised in the European Community-Member States since 1993 in accordance with Council Directive 91/414/EEC. The programme for evaluating existing active substances (which were on the market before July 1993) involves several steps and stages that were expected to be completed over a period of up 10, but now 15 years. The programme has been co-ordinated by the European Commission, with the assistance of the ECCO Team (European Community Co-Ordination) since 1996. The ECCO-Team consisted of two groups; one situated at the Pesticides Safety Directorate – PSD in York (United Kingdom) and the other at the Bundesamt fur Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit – BVL (Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety), before November 2002 at the Biologische Bundesanstalt fur Land- und Forstwirtschaft – BBA (Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry), in Braunschweig (Germany). They provided technical and administrative support to the programme for the evaluation of active substances on behalf of the European Commission, and were responsible for the ECCO Peer Review programme in particular. Since November 2003 the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has taken over the responsibility for the scientific peer review of the evaluations prepared by Member States. However the ECCO-Team has continued to provide assistance to the European Commission in carrying forward other aspects of the process, particular to support the European Commission in its management tasks. Overall the programme has been extremely successful, with 162 active substances having been peer reviewed between 1996 and 2003, facilitating decisions on the acceptability of those actives at Community level.