EU Commission likely to fill biocides funding shortfall

The European Commission is likely to provide the money ECHA needs to begin work on the biocidal products Regulation (BPR) if fees fail to provide the €1m requested by the agency for the task, according to Pierre Choraine, biocides team coordinator in the European Commission’s DG Environment.

It remains unclear how much money will be generated by fees under the BPR, after member states failed to agree on the issue during last week’s meeting of the biocidal products standing committee. The issue will now be discussed at ECHA’s next management board meeting on 20 March.

“We are all working very hard to be ready for 1 September,” said Mr Choraine on Thursday at a conference on biocides organised by Steptoe and Johnson in Brussels. “There was a request from ECHA for an additional budget of €1 million and we are looking to respond positively.”

Craig Simpson, senior associate in Steptoe’s Brussels office, suggested that the fee proposal could be used by ECHA to “encourage or deter certain kinds of applications”. He highlighted that, for example, under the current plans, “if you submit an active substance approval that could be considered as a substitute for a more dangerous substance then you could get reduced fees”. Meanwhile, there will be “increased fees for the approval of active candidates for substitution,” and SME’s will not receive reduced fees “for products containing candidate actives”.

That was one way of looking at it, said Mr Choraine, "but the other way would be to see that for certain substances, such as the candidates for substitution, there will be a higher workload for ECHA, and so that is why they will be subject to higher fees."

Last week's meeting of EU member state biocidal products competent authorities also discussed the Commission's proposal to revise various aspects of the BPR. “The Regulation is changing before our eyes,” said Darren Abrahams, a partner at Steptoe. “There are changes to the four corners of the Regulation; these are not just technical changes.”

However Mr Choraine denied that this was the case. “We don’t intend to modify the Regulation,” he said. “But to have a text that is as clear as possible.” The Commission’s aim is to make a formal proposal to amend the BPR with “mainly corrections or clarifications to articles 89, 94, 95 in April,” he said. “We would then be aiming for a first reading agreement. These corrections and clarifications ideas have been discussed with member states, which are supportive of them, and we hope that this will also be the case with the European Parliament.”

He added that the Commission was aiming to clarify and in some cases correct some drafting errors and was not changing any of the Regulation's provisions. One area that needs greater clarification is the issue of alternative substance suppliers, he said. The Commission plans to publish guidance next week that will include guidelines on similar conditions of use and on the harmonised structure of fees to be paid to member states.