Biocides
The Biocidal Products Directive 98/8/EC (BPD) seeks to
establish a high level of protection for humans and the
environment, and to eliminate barriers to trade by
harmonizing the processes involved in placing biocidal products on
the European market. But it will also dramatically transform the
biocidal industry, since it will have far-reaching effects on those
who produce, distribute and use active substances.
The BPD describes biocides as chemical preparations containing
one or more active substances that are intended to control harmful
organisms by either chemical or biological means.
The classification of biocides is broken down into 23
Product Types (i.e. application categories), with
several comprising different subgroups.
Under the BPD, the system of approval requires two
regulatory submissions before a biocidal product can be
marketed: the first on the active substances, and the
second on the formulated biocidal products.Each requires a dossier
per product type that contains information on its biocidal
efficacy, toxicological and ecotoxicological properties, etc.
Read more information on the submitted
product types page.
Progress thus far
The dossiers submitted in 2007 have passed the evaluation period
and are currently subject to commenting from the member
states.
See the Draft
competent authority report on circa.europa.eu
The dossiers submitted in 2008 are currently undergoing
evaluation by the Rapporteur Member State.
Following steps
At the next step we wait for the comments from the MS and the
response from the RMS to these comments. After this the draft
competent authority report will be referred to the Technical
Meeting to discuss any further issues of contention.
On the agency website you can follow the annex I entries by
clicking on these links:
Biocidal Products Regulation
The new Biocidal Products Regulation is expected to come into
force on the 1st of January 2013. Given the timelines of
the active substance registration, it seems likely that the
products based on our active substances will be registered under
this new regime. We are currently following developments at the EU
level to ascertain how this will affect our registrations.
