PAN Europe considers that the Commission’s proposal for a new implementing regulation on co-formulants used in pesticides[1] fails to ensure compliance with Reg. (EU) 1107/2009, i.e that co-formulants used in pesticide products cause no harm to human health or have no unacceptable effect on the environment. Instead of implementing a harmonised approach through an EU-centralised assessment based on mandatory data requirements like for pesticide active substances, the European Commission asks the 27 Member States to carry out the work themselves, without providing them with the needed data.
After years of delays, the European Commission published a proposal for an implementing regulation concerning pesticide co-formulants, supplementing Regulation(EU)1107/2009 (hereafter "the pesticide regulation"), with regards to “unacceptable co-formulants”, as prescribed in article 27. The pesticide regulation suggests that article 27 should have been already implemented by 14 June 2016 (article 81). Yet, only in 2021 a first ad-hoc implementing act listing “unacceptable co-formulants” was adopted. The new implementing regulation proposal sets out “detailed rules for the identification of unacceptable co-formulants” on a continuous basis.