EU “institutions”
Date: 19 May 2020
In the EU, there are a variety of bodies involved in management, evaluation and execution of legislation concerning active substances and plant protection products. The following alphabetical list is a short overview, neither comprehensive, nor exclusive and focusses only on tasks for plant protection, disregarding all other areas.
CIRCABC: Communication and Information Resource Centre for Administrations, Businesses and Citizens, an application used to create collaborative workspaces where communities of users can work together over the web and share information and resources. It is used to share public administration documents. There is also a non-public part for Member States (CIRCA - Communication and Information Resource Centre for Administrations), which they us as a platform to share evaluation reports for plant protection products.
COM: European Commission also referred to as EC, exercises executive powers – such as upholding EU treaties and managing day-to-day business – but not legislative ones other than legislative initiative. For plant protection, the COM issues the legislative initiative, i.e. proposal for inclusion/non-inclusion in Annex I on which the SCoPAFF will vote. COM then adopts the legislation, if it was accepted by SCoPAFF.
Council: Council of the European Union, also Council of Ministers, one of the legislative bodies which amends and approves proposals from the European Commission together with the European Parliament. It is composed of the national ministers (one per state) and meets in 10 different configurations, depending on the topic under discussion. Usually, it is not directly involved in plant protection legislation. However, in the recent glyphosate case, political discussion was moved from SCoPAFF to the Council.
DCG: Director´s Consultation Group; initiated by the central zone Steering committee. It consists of the authorities’ directors of the central zone (i.e. head of plant protection department of national authorities) to monitor the harmonisation process and to come to decisions if working groups on zonal level cannot arrive at an agreement for plant protection products.
DG SANTE: Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, before 2014 called DG SANCO, develops and carries out the Commission’s policies by implementation of European Union laws on the safety of foods and public health. It issues important guidance on the implementation of plant protection regulations.
ECHA: European Chemicals Agency; with respect to plant protection, it takes care of classification and labelling for active substances. It is therefore involved in preparing Vol 1 of assessment reports for active substances.
EFSA: European Food Safety Authority, prepares scientific evaluations, co-ordinates peer-reviews of the assessment report issued by the rapporteur member state for active substances. Issues the EFSA conclusion on which COM proposals for active substances are based.
EP: European Parliament, adopts European legislation, normally on a proposal from the European Commission as it does not hold legislative initiative. It is directly elected by the European citizens and currently has 705 members. It is not directly involved in plant protection legislation, but recently issued a non-binding resolution in the glyphosate case and starts various political initiatives.
EUCO: European Council, comprised of the head of states of all EU members. It is not involved in plant protection legislation.
PAI: Post approval issues, expert group which counsels the SCoPAFF.
SCoPAFF: Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed. The PAFF Committee is composed by representatives of all EU countries and presided by a COM representative. It delivers opinions on draft measures that the COM intends to adopt and aids the COM in initiating legislation. Here, votes on the COM’s initiatives for inclusion/non-inclusion in Annex I are taken.
zSC (izSC, nzSC, czSC, szSC): zonal Steering Committee (interzonal, northern, central, southern), strive for coordination and cooperation between the national authorities in the Member States, coordinate zonal procedures for evaluation of plant protection products.
Sarah-Madeleine Hönig