EU round up: EC promises to work harder and use more resources to control biocides

The European Commission has committed itself to a more vigorous implementation of the European Union’s (EU) biocidal products regulation (No 528/2012) and is encouraging EU member states to follow suit.

In a report on the sustainable use of biocides, the Commission stresses that these are "widely used in materials, such as paints to protect these materials against microbial, fungi or insect decay”.

The report stated the Commission said it planned to "focus and strengthen efforts on the review programme of existing active substances”, to meet its 2024 deadline. This would be "the first and main priority”.

The Commission also pledged that once active substances are approved, ‘product authorisations are granted, amended or cancelled within three years’. Brussels promised to invest additional resources on enforcement.

Brussels said that the regulation’s authorisation process would be used to write best practice guidance on specific biocides into usage rules, by integrating such advice into mandated conditions of use. By doing so, however, paint and coating companies would have to pass on legal liabilities to their customers on compliance, because suppliers will have to sell biocidal products on condition that ‘the end-user be able to read and correctly follow the recommendations given’. This could include when specific equipment is used, ‘mainly in industrial or service sectors where a lot of equipment is already designed to minimise exposure (eg automated systems for wood treatment) and avoid overdosing (eg calibrated dosing of in-can preservatives, calibration of sprayers for antifouling paints)’, said the report.

The Commission said it would encourage awareness-raising campaigns to inform end-users of existing biocidal product controls, through websites, in-store leaflets or videos and quick response codes on biocidal products. And it would encourage the development and implementation of standards on the sustainable use of biocidal products, for instance through the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN).

Brussels said it would encourage EU member states to also follow these steps, concluding that ‘member states will need to invest additional resources on enforcement activities to ensure that no product is illegally placed on their market and that biocidal products are properly labelled’.

It also stressed that companies supplying biocidal products to sectors, such as paint manufacturers had to invest in responding to these controls: ‘Responding to this societal demand requires important investments from companies placing biocidal products on the market, in particular to provide the data required to demonstrate that their products are safe and effective’.

• http://ec.europa.eu/health/biocides/docs/2016_report_sustainableuse_biocides_en.pdf