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)
The evaluation results, confirmed by the February conference, identified significant support for
general epidemio-surveillance for priority HOs, although the process and criteria to be used for
the identification and selection of HOs to be subject to such surveillance, as well as the scope
and method of the surveillance, remain to be discussed.
From the feedback received from MS CAs and stakeholders to date, it can be concluded that the
level of prioritisation needs to be restricted to key HOs of EU significance and cover the EU-27,
although more regional surveillance models could also be considered for HOs of regional
significance. An approach that could be followed could be the differentiation among high
priority HOs (for the EU), for which mandatory surveillance and contingency plans should be
introduced, and low priority HOs (or HOs with a more regional importance) for which MS could
be left with a higher degree of subsidiarity.
The level and method of surveillance could include both passive (for non identified HOs or other
species/subspecies of identified HOs) and active surveillance (for identified HOs/species). To
maximise effectiveness, such surveillance needs to involve the full network of actors in this field,
including professional stakeholders who are the first link in the network; in this context, parallels
can be drawn from the approach followed in the animal health sector (bio security best practices
at micro-level, for individual operators). At macro-level, the network could extend beyond EU-
27, to cover for example Euro-MED or other regional third country trading partners.
Within options iii and iv, further consideration needs to be given to the following elements:
a. How to prioritise HOs? Definition of criteria and method to be followed for the
prioritisation of HOs needs to be explored: e.g. on basis of Annex I and II, section I: HOs
not present; Annex I and II, section II: HOs locally present. Key criteria may include:
extent to which the HO presents a risk to the EU as a whole, including in terms of
economic impact; the current knowledge base in terms of the availability of updated pest
status at EU level for selected HOs.
b. What should be the degree of subsidiarity? Criteria may include: prioritisation of HOs at
EU level (e.g. following US approach: representativeness of broad range of methods and
classes of pests and ranking); regional prioritisation could also be followed in some cases.
A key guiding principle could be that surveillance would be more consistent, relevant,
effective and efficient if done at a higher level. The US approach (CAPS) is presented here
as a case study on this.
Food Chain Evaluation Consortium 340