Outcome of the vote onflufenoxuron at the Standing Committee on Biocidal Products
A votetook place on 22nd September 2011 in the Standing Committee on Biocidal Products on the inclusion of flufenoxuron in Annex I of the Biocidal Products Directive 98/8/EC, for use in Product-Type 8 biocidal products (wood preservatives).Theflufenoxuron inclusion Directive(a copy of which is attached for information) failed to achieve a qualified majority needed to secure Annex I listing.
Background
In the UK flufenoxuron is approved for professional and amateur use in 28 wood preservative products underCOPR and the corresponding Regulations in Northern Ireland.Until a decision on inclusion, these products will remain under Member States national requirements.
When the Directive first entered into force in 1998, a programme of work was initiated to review the acceptability of all the active substances then on the market. Flufenoxuron was evaluated by France as part of this review programme.
The review identified risks from use of flufenoxuron in particular risks to the environment when it is used for the in situ treatment of wood outdoors, or other outdoor uses.
The Commission’s proposal addresses the particular environmental risks of flufenoxuron, by including a specific provision requiring Member States to ensure that wood preservative biocidal products containing it are authorised only for treatment of wood intended for indoor use. Other human health and environment concerns are accommodated by requiring risk mitigation measures to be established to ensure safe operational procedures for users; and labelling requirements on storage after treatment.
Next steps
The Commission's proposed Annex I inclusion Directive will now be put to theEuropean Council for consideration, where a qualified majority vote (qmv) is required to block the adoption ofDirective.Where theCouncildecides it can support the proposal, but wishes to make changes, it willforward the Directive to the European Parliament (EP), which canstill block the Directive with an absolute majority. In this case, the Inclusion Directive is not adopted, and the Commission would need to present a revised proposal and the decision-making process would start again. This would leave the future offlufenoxuron undecided for even longer, and of course, we have no way of knowing at this stage what any revised proposal might look like.
If neither the Council nor the EP blocks the Directive, it will be referred back to the Commission for adoption. This of course will pave the way for inclusion offlufenoxuron in Annex I of the Biocidal Products Directive (BPD), and so allow Member States to authorise biocidal products containingflufenoxuron forprofessional use subject to the conditions listed in the Annex to the inclusion Directive.
Timetable of events
We are expecting atimetable from the Commission and will communicate further details once we have them. However, we expect that the Commission will forward its proposal to the Councilwithin 2 months of the Standing Committee vote. Council then have 2 months to reach a decision. The EP then has a further 2 months to decide whether to act.
Information sought
If you have any of the following information about wood preservative products containing flufenoxuron as an active substance, it would be helpful if you could let us have it so that we can gauge the importance of this active substance to the UK:
1. Can you provide details ofthe level of distributionof the product(s) in the UK?
2.If flufenoxuron is not included in Annex I of the biocidal products Directive, which will result in the removal from the market of these active substances and the products containing them,what would be the impact foryou and/or suppliers or users?
Please sendyour response by8th November.