REGULATION (EC) No 1107/2009
Date: 1 April 2020
REGULATION (EC) No 1107/2009 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 21 October 2009 concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market and repealing Council Directives 79/117/EEC and 91/414/EEC – and a little bit of (necessary) history
This is the foundation of plant protection legislation in Europe today – but we usually go by calling it “1107”.
It is the legislation successive to Directive 91/414, which was replaced by our “1107”, when the latter became applicable on 14 June 2011. Nevertheless “91/414” has significantly shaped the landscape of active substances (a.s.) in Europe. It called for a review of all existing a.s. in the EU and organised them into 4 individual stages, also called lists, with successive deadline for submission of dossiers. List 1 contained the a.s. of highest concern and list 4 those of (mostly) natural origin. When, after the assessment, an a.s. was found suitable, it was “included into Annex I” and could remain on the market for 10 years (usually), before it had to be re-assessed.
The purpose of “1107” is laid down in Article 1.3: “… to ensure a high level of protection of both human and animal health and the environment and to improve the functioning of the internal market through the harmonisation of the rules on the placing on the market of plant protection products, while improving agricultural production.” And its scope is stipulated in Article 2 – which is currently undergoing some changes with the advent of the new Fertiliser Regulation.
REGULATION (EC) No 1107/2009 is separated into individual chapters and 3 Annexes. And, while the Regulation is important in its entirety, the main provisions for the regulatory procedures and data requirements are laid down in Chapter 2 ACTIVE SUBSTANCES, SAFENERS, SYNERGISTS AND CO-FORMULANTS (Articles 3 to 27) and Chapter 3 PLANT PROTECTION PRODUCTS (Articles 28 to 57), indicating that the process for keeping Plant Protection Products (PPP) in the market is a two stage process, a.s. first and then PPPs.
Of course, “1107” has provisions for the evaluation of new active substances as well as existing active substances, the latter is called still Annex-I-Renewal (AIR), although today we speak with “1107” of approval and not of any “Annex I inclusion”. And this is why we undertook this short excursion into the history of plant protection regulation in the EU.
Bernd Brielbeck
