End of road for two-thirds of biocides

Only some 360 substances fall in this category - around 37% of the total number of existing substances.

The remainder will disappear from the EU's biocidal armoury in less than three years, mirroring a process which has already occurred in the pesticides field.

The notifications for the 360 or so substances in this group cover around 1,680 substance/product type combinations (see table).

The table also shows the timetable set by the Regulation for the four-phase review programme. The first decisions on substances in phase one - wood preservatives and rodenticides - are expected towards the end of 2005. The work will build to a peak in phase three, and it remains an open question whether the competent authorities will have sufficient resources to avoid a repetition of the delays which have plagued the EU's pesticides review programme over the past decade.

The Regulation also formally appoints Member States as rapporteurs for the review programme's first two phases. The UK is rapporteur for ten wood preservatives in phase one, and 19 of the 205 phase two substances.

An important set of provisions deals with the procedures for the review programme. These are in some key respects more generous to both the competent authorities and to industry than had been expected a year ago.

The procedure begins with a company submitting a dossier of test data, accompanied by a summary dossier containing, among other things, a risk assessment. The rapporteur Member State must carry out a completeness check within three months.

However, the deadline for the completeness check will be extendable to six months after submission of a dossier where its acceptability is the subject of consultations with other national authorities. In "exceptional circumstances", the rapporteur may also set a later deadline for the submission of some information where a company was unable to submit it on time.

Once a dossier is accepted, the rapporteur must evaluate it and prepare a "competent authority report" recommending whether the substance should or should not be accepted.

This time last year, a 12-month deadline for completion of evaluations was being contemplated - but it failed to make it into the Regulation, no doubt because national authorities did not want to have their hands tied. This may be of concern to some biocide producers, since competitors who did not notify a substance or bear the cost of preparing a dossier will have a free ride until the evaluation is completed.

Rapporteurs may often find themselves evaluating more than just the dossier. The Regulation enables companies to require the rapporteur to take into account additional information submitted up to nine months after the acceptance of the original dossier, where the rapporteur was notified that this would be forthcoming at the time the dossier was submitted. In order to be taken into account, the extra information must be "equally or more reliable owing to the application of the same or higher quality standards", and must support a different conclusion concerning the substance. The clause is, in effect, a last opportunity for companies to stop their products being barred.

Competent authority reports will be publicly available except for information which must be treated as confidential under the 1998 Directive. The Regulation also contains provisions intended to promote data sharing and minimisation of animal testing, and to allow companies, trade associations or even Member States to take over supporting a biocidal substance through the review process where the original applicant pulls out.