Proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 2000/29/EC as regards the delegation of the tasks of laboratory testing

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Tekst

COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

OUTCOME OF PROCEEDINGS from : dated :

Working Party on Plant Health 29 September 2009

Brussels, 5 October 2009

LIMITE

AGRI 413 PHYTOSAN 27

Subject :

Proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 2000/29/EC as regards the delegation of the tasks of laboratory testing

  • 1. 
    On 29 September 2009, the Working Party on Plant Health began the examination of the above Commission proposal1.
  • 2. 
    The Commission representative introduced its proposal which aims at solving the difficulties encountered by a large number of Member States when trying to fulfil the current requirements of plant health legislation regarding the delegation of laboratory analyses in the plant health sector.

The proposal specifically provides for the amendment of Article 2(1)(g)(ii) of Directive 2000/29/EC in order to extend the delegation of these laboratory tasks to a broader number of legal persons and not only those charged exclusively with official functions. In all cases the laboratories would be under the supervision of the responsible official bodies in each Member State. The proposal would at the same time allow official laboratories meeting the present requirements of Directive 2000/29/EC to diversify their laboratory testing activities.

Document 12840/09 (COM(2009) 424 final.

14073/09

DG B II

PVG/sla                          1

LIMITE EN

1

  • 3. 
    A majority of delegations welcomed the proposal and expressed their wish for its rapid adoption. They also made the following preliminary remarks1:
  • a) 
    the drafting of the legislative text could be further improved.
  • b) 
    The most controversial area in the discussions concerned the issue of quality assurance of the laboratories with delegated tasks and the need to guarantee their impartiality and avoid conflict of interests. While a large number of delegations believed that this issue needed a detailed examination and might be better addressed in the context of the general plant health review, one delegation favoured laying down a requirement in the present text for detailed provisions which could then be developed following a comitology procedure. One delegation was able to accept that these detailed requirements for the quality of the laboratories' work should be directly set out in the text of the Directive but others said they would be satisfied with a simple reference in the text. In this regard reference was made to the provisions of Regulation (CE) No 882/2004 on official controls performed to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules and to European and International Standards in this field.
  • c) 
    A number of delegations opposed the obligation laid down in Article 2 for Member States to provide correlation tables.

Replying to delegations, the Commission representative expressed the view that the need to avoid conflict of interests was already correctly addressed in the proposal. Regarding quality assurance, he reminded delegations that as this was only an interim measure before the overall review of the plant health regime it would be better to deal with this issue in that framework. He also reassured delegations by saying that in all cases the national plant protection authorities would have to supervise the delegation of tasks. Finally, the Commission representative undertook to examine the question of the correlation tables.

1 Scrutiny reservation by a number of delegations as they still needed more time to complete their internal consultations,

14073/09                                                                                           PVG/sla                          2

DG B II                      LIMITE EN

  • 4. 
    In concluding the meeting the Presidency asked delegations to send in written contributions if they wished to do so, before Tuesday 6 October 2009. The Presidency undertook to submit a compromise proposal to be discussed at an incoming meeting of the Working Party on Plant Health or the Working Group of Agricultural Attachés on the basis of the oral and written comments provided by Member States.

14073/09                                                                                           PVG/sla                          3

DG B II                      LIMITE EN

2.

Originele weergave

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