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)
promoted in the S&PM Directives. 237 . Also, the IPPC allows for delegation of tasks in the
area of plant health with the exception of the issuance of the export certificate.
The views on this are largely divided amongst interviewees, depending on perspective. For
example, one stakeholder commented that they considered it important that the current
flexibility allowed by the S&PM Marketing Directives be maintained. On the other hand, an
MS CA noted that third countries (e.g. Russia) have concerns about the delegation of powers
to the private sector. Also new MS do not want to delegate too much to private operators, as
illustrated for instance with the issuing of plant passports, which is a task fully under the
responsibility of the CA in Poland and Romania.
3.12.2 Coherence with General Food Law and Official Controls
The coherence of the CPHR with the General Food Law (Regulation 178/2002) and
legislation on official controls (Regulation 882/2004) was also examined.
Plant health is currently outside the scope of both Regulations, which aim to ensure food
safety. Directive 2000/29/EC establishes sectoral control rules for official controls in plant
health and therefore controls in this area are not governed by the above Regulations 238 .
Overall, respondents to the general survey and interviewees did not identify areas of strong
overlap or inconsistency between the CPHR and the food law but their comments and
opinions mainly focused on the principles of the Food Law that are of interest to the CPHR.
They consider that some useful parallels can be drawn and, where appropriate, streamlining
could be sought with some of the provisions of these Regulations.
General survey results
Q 9.1 Source of inconsistencies between CPHR and General Food Law and Official control legislations:
7 out of 24 MS CAs and 1 out of 21 stakeholders consider that CPHR overlaps with the General Food Law and
Official control legislations and that such overlapping can be a source of conflict/inconsistency (6 MS CAs and
16 stakeholders do not know).
Q 9.2 Extent to which the revision of the CPHR in future should be guided by any of the principles
developed under the General Food Law and Official control legislations:
8 out of 25 MS CAs and 1 out of 21 stakeholders consider that the revision of the CPHR should be guided by the
General Food Law and Official control legislations (7 MS CAs and 16 stakeholders do not know).
It is noted that the case of plant health is quite different from food safety or animal health,
where the links to human health are unequivocal and problems/diseases are specific. Different
approaches may therefore be required in practice for carrying out surveillance, inspections
and controls. However, it remains important to gain experience from what is done in these
237 In this respect, it is noted that Article 2(1)(g) was amended in November 2009 to allow delegation of
laboratory tasks to private bodies. This amendment was discussed in the context of current diagnostic facilities,
under section 3.9.2.
238
Except for the provisions applicable to annual reporting (in the context of multi-annual control plans which
are cross sectoral) and to EU inspections within the MS and third countries (Articles 41 to 46 of Regulation
882/2004).
Food Chain Evaluation Consortium 255