EPPO Council Colloquium on ‘Mutual recognition ‐ theory and practice’, Clermont‐Ferrand (FR) 1999–09‐16

The purpose of the 1999 EPPO Council Colloquium was to analyse what, in the context of registration of plant protection products, is ‘mutual recognition’ as proposed in EU Directive 91/414 and to understand how it is working in practice. Because few active substances are yet included in Annex I of this Directive, and because the criteria for comparability of agricultural practices, plant health and environmental conditions have yet to be worked out in practice, EU Member States do not currently find themselves obliged under the Directive to recognize authorizations given in other countries. However, Member States are working out voluntary systems of recognition for their mutual benefit. Thus, countries such as Germany and Austria, which are perceived as comparable and face no linguistic difficulties in exchanging data, are developing a voluntary system, and a general flow‐chart is proposed that could be more generally used. From The Netherlands comes a proposal to use voluntary recognition to solve the problem of minor‐use authorizations. EPPO's role in developing guidelines for many aspects of registration is stressed, with new possibilities in the area of assessment of comparability. Non‐EU countries have more flexible possibilities for mutual recognition, based on their knowledge of other countries' systems, how they follow EPPO standards and to what extent their systems are modelled on the EU Directive.