2454 final report.pdf - Agra CEAS Consulting

Evaluation of the Community Plant Health Regime: Final Report
DG SANCO Evaluation Framework Contract Lot 3 (Food Chain)
For the majority of the interviewees, one major difficulty with the adoption of emergency
measures is that a PRA is needed, which ideally requires cases within Europe to determine
appropriate control measures (e.g. Anoplophora chinensis imported from China - this issue is
also discussed in section 3.4.11). Thus the main difficulty is linked to the knowledge of the HO
and its behaviour in the European context, and lack of timely reporting action may accentuate the
time delays.
The effectiveness of emergency measures experienced with e.g. PWN, red palm weevil and
Diabrotica virgifera demonstrates that emergency measures do not work when they are adopted
too late. For eradication to be effective, radical measures have to be taken from the start,
however, this requires that timely actions are taken. Interviewees have reported that too often the
development of PRAs takes too much time due to resources and capacity limits in the different
MS, and it therefore takes too long to establish the probability and level of risk.
When new findings occur, instead of leaving emergency PRAs to MS, it might be preferable to
have a Community wide emergency PRA (fast track EU PRA) 157 as a starting point, which could
be linked to a 3-5 years development program to complete the first draft with biological,
epidemiological and economic data. A ‗fast track PRA‘ could be done by relying on existing
evidence (e.g. EPPO, MS PRAs). The problem with PRAs carried out by MS is the limited scope
of the PRA from an EU viewpoint. Most MS complete a PRA focussing on the scope of risks in
their territory. Additionally, experts should be listed and funding granted to secure coordination
and delivery in the development of a more complete assessment. Following the PRA approach
on a more systematic basis would imply dedicating more resources to the body that would be in
charge of this task (the PH Panel of the EFSA are currently in charge of conducting PRAs).
Most of the interviewees and the majority of the stakeholders consider that MS should more
actively share information about their experience concerning the eradication campaigns, that will
allow other MS with similar problems to learn from their experience and then react faster and
more effectively. For example, the EPPO workshop organised in February 2009 in Nova Gorica
(SI) on eradication, containment and contingency plans is being seen by most of the interviewees
as a positive approach to exchange information and ideas between MS. Regular similar
workshops should be organised.
A major point coming out of the interviews is that the current legislation focuses too much and
too long on eradication measures, even in cases of advanced spread and where natural spread has
been shown to constitute a major factor 158 . This has been explained by the fact that moving to
control measures may necessitate the development of Council Control Directives, which is
considered too long a process. In such cases, it is considered more appropriate to accept that – at
least for a determined period of time - eradication is a ‗lost‘ cause and to tailor measures for
containment. Although the availability of eradication plans is useful in the early phases of
outbreak to slow down the spread of this type of HO, it is considered they should be more
rapidly replaced by containment measures as spread advances.
157 This is already the case for emergency measures.
158 The effectiveness of the CPHR to stop natural spread, including the emergency measure taken in the case of
PWN and Diabrotica virgifera, has been assessed in section 3.1.1.
Food Chain Evaluation Consortium 147