On 25 February, the European Parliament adopted the proposal to amend the Biocidal Products Regulation (BPR). The amendment clarifies some ambiguous terms and errors which were identified not long after the Regulation was adopted in 2012. The Biocidal Products Regulation came into force on 1 September 2013. 

 

The proposal was put forward by the EU Commission in May last year and A.I.S.E. actively contributed to the legislative process.

 

A.I.S.E. particularly welcomes the new amendment to the BPR which includes the following priorities:

• The correction of the unintended market freeze on new treated articles containing active substances that have not been through the review programme yet as the process is on-going.
• The scope of the biocidal product family concept has been broadened to include products with a lower hazard classification if they have similar composition, exposure levels and proven efficacy. The original text only allowed for products with the same classification to be in the same family. The new proposal provides more flexibility to create family dossiers, resulting in reduced authorisation fees and less administrative burdens for companies as well as room for innovation of the products.
• The list of alternative suppliers has been amended to provide the possibility for product manufacturers to support an active substance dossier where it can provide all necessary data. 

Finally, ECHA will play a new enforcement role in ensuring exchange of information between Member States. This is a positive development towards harmonisation of the internal market.

The Council will now approve the proposal without debate at a future Council meeting expected possibly as early as March 2014. 

The text of the new Regulation would then be published in the EU's Official Journal before entering into force.

To download the amended BPR Regulation, click here