In the Regulation concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market (1107/2009), Consideration 29 stateds the following: To avoid any duplication of work, to reduce the administrative burden for industry and for Member States and to provide for more harmonised availability of plant protection products, authorisations granted by one Member State should be accepted by other Member States where agricultural, planth health and environmental (including climatic) conditions are comparable.
Therefore, the Community should be divided into zones with such comparable conditions in order to facilitate such mutual recognition.
1107/2009 Article 3(17): “zone” means a group of Member States as defined in Annex I.
Annex I – Definition of zones for the authorisation of plant protection products as referred to in Article 3(17)
EU zones after brexit
- Zone A — North
The following Member States belong to this zone: Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden - Zone B — Centre
The following Member States belong to this zone: Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Hungary, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom - Zone C — South
The following Member States belong to this zone:Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Malta, Portugal [note Ctgb: plus Croatia]
The applications for authorisation are distributed within these zones, which have four Steering Committees in charge: one Steering Committee for each zone, with a rotating presidency (this year the Netherlands holds the presidency of the central zone), plus a coordinating (interzonal) steering committee, chaired by a member of the Commission, in which the (incoming) presidents of the other three steering groups also participate.
Interzonal application
In case of applications for uses described below, only one MS (Interzonal RMS – “iRMS”) shall evaluate the application considering all zones (Article 33.2 paragraph (b)): Greenhouse uses (as defined in Article 3.27 of EU Regulation 1107/2009), post-harvest treatment (as defined in Article 3.28 of EU Regulation 1107/2009), treatment of empty storage rooms with a view to preserving and/or protecting plants and plant products (as laid down in Article 2.1 of EU Regulation 1107/2009) and seed treatment. (SANCO/13169/2010 Rev. 11)
The interzonal evaluation is performed by one country in the EU, called the interzonal Rapporteur Member State (izRMS).
Applicants should decide on the interzonal Rapporteur Member State. The other countries in the EU where the product will be placed on the market will be Concerned Member State (CMS) in the registration procedure.
Zonal ànd interzonal uses in one application
In case of a product that has both uses that should be evaluated interzonally as well as uses that should be evaluated zonally òne application can be submitted. In these cases the zRMS for the zonal uses will also evaluate the interzonal uses.