Biocidal products

Key points:

The EESC:

• regrets that, during the process of adopting the new European legislation on biocidal products, the Commission, the Council and Parliament have not given prior consideration to the distortions that confused and unclear transitional rules could create;
• agrees that changes need to be made to the Biocidal Products Regulation before it enters into force, so as to facilitate the transition from Directive 98/8/EC;
• welcomes the changes made to the transitional measures concerning treated articles, and the evaluation of existing active substance and biocidal products
• calls on the Commission to ensure that the innovative provision on the mandatory sharing of studies on environmental fate and behaviour relating to Annex II of Regulation (EC) No 1451/2007, does not distort competition or have a detrimental impact on companies' innovation capacity;
• is in favour of dealing with other important matters in the context of this legislative modification, such as access to information, the definition of products of the biocidal products family and the obligation to share data.

Relevant EESC opinion:

• Opinion on the use of biocidal products (INT/493).

For more information please contact the INT Section Secretariat.