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Food Safety

Harmonised risk indicators

Legal Obligations

On 15 May 2019, Commission Directive (EU) 2019/782 establishing harmonised risk indicators to estimate the trends in risk from pesticide use was adopted. This Commission Directive establishes Harmonised Risk Indicators as referred to in Article 15 (1) of Directive 2009/128/EC.

The European Commission is obliged to calculate Harmonised Risk Indicators at Community level and to make the results available to the public under Article 15(4) of Directive 2009/128/EC.

Member States are obliged to:

  • calculate the Harmonised Risk Indicators under Article 15(2)(a) of Directive 2009/128/EC.
  • identify trends in the use of certain active substances under Article 15(2)(b) of Directive 2009/128/EC
  • identify priority items, such as active substances, crops, regions, or practices that require particular attention, or good practices that can be used as examples in order to achieve the objectives of the Directive under Article 15(2)(c) of Directive 2009/128/EC.
  • communicate the results of these evaluations to the Commission and to other Member States and to make this information available to the public under Article 15(3) of Directive 2009/128/EC.

Both the European Commission and Member States must to complete these tasks for each calendar year, and at the latest 20 months after the end of the relevant year, (for example, by 30 August 2020 for 2018) in line with Section 2, Article 7 and Section 3, Article 6 of Commission Directive (EU) 2019/782.

Guidance

The Commission, in collaboration with Member States, has developed a Methodological Guide to assist Member States to calculate Harmonised Risk Indicators, which is publically available on the Eurostat website.

Future plans

The Commission has committed to develop a more sophisticated indicator to show the trend in the risks associated with emergency authorisations. In the future and when data becomes available, it is envisaged to develop additional indicators to facilitate monitoring specific aspects of the Directive 2009/128/EC. These future indictors could be based on organic farming, certification of sufficient knowledge acquired by professional users, and inspection of pesticide application equipment.

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