Apr. 16, 2008
Nine herbicides, three insecticides and two fungicides are to gain EU re-registration following clearance by the EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health in March. The active ingredients are: the herbicides, bifenox, dicamba, diflufenican, fenoxaprop-P, imazaquin, lenacil, oxadiazon, picloram and quinoclamine; the insecticides, clofentezine, diflubenzuron and pyriproxyfen: and the fungicides, difenoconazole and fenpropidin. They were in the third round of the EU review of existing active ingredients. The European Commission will confirm the re-registration decision and set a date for addition to Annex I of the EU agrochemical registration Directive (91/414).
The EU review, already considerably delayed, is facing tight deadlines for its completion. While supporting the favourable votes for re-registration, the Netherlands, along with Austria, Belgium and Germany, expressed concern at the late availability of documents for some ais at the meeting.
The Dutch officials acknowledged the efforts to speed up the review by using a "green" fast- track procedure for ais where no issues had been raised in the assessment. For the March meeting, they said that they felt able to accept "on an exceptional basis" the late documents for clofentezine, dicamba, difenoconazole, diflubenzuron, imazaquin, lenacil, oxadiazon, picloram and pyriproxyfen because they were in the fast- track process. Nevertheless, the officials urged the Commission to "respect" procedural rules for regulatory meetings.
In response, the Commission acknowledged the member states' "flexibility" for dealing with the very tight deadlines for completing the EU review and said that it would endeavour to circulate documents as soon as possible.
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