- Crop Science
Emergency Authorizations of crop protection products in the European Union
Crop protection products are usually approved via the standard regulatory process. However, there can be exceptions – called ‘emergency authorizations’ – in exceptional situations.
Before a crop protection product is approved for use in the European Union (EU), thorough evaluations are carried out to ensure that the product can be used in a way which is safe for people and the environment. EU law sets out stringent conditions for this rigorous procedure, which can take approximately 3 years.
Sometimes, farmers can face exceptional situations where a crop protection product which is not (or not yet) authorized is the only viable option available to successfully handle an imminent threat to their crops.
In cases such as these, EU law recognizes that swift intervention is needed to protect the farmer’s harvest against otherwise unavoidable losses. This is why the bloc’s plant protection regulation includes a provision allowing EU countries to grant approvals known as ‘emergency authorizations’.
Emergency Authorizations are temporary approvals which are only permitted in exceptional situations and according to specific conditions. They allow an otherwise unapproved use of a product to be used on a specific crop, in a limited and controlled way, for a maximum period of 120 days in one year.
Emergency authorizations can only be granted when strictly necessary: EU countries must always complete a comprehensive justification for their decision to allow this temporary measure. In addition, the initial request for an emergency authorization usually comes from farmers’ groups and national agricultural associations within the EU country concerned. These groups have a detailed understanding of the local agronomic conditions and the solutions available to them – so they are best placed to make the request when necessary.
The following situations all constitute reasons that may lead to an EU country granting an emergency authorization:
- The product is only authorized for use on certain crops, so a separate authorization is required to use that product on a different crop;
- The product contains a newly approved active substance at EU level, but the specific EU country has not yet approved products containing that active substance;
- The problem is caused by a new, invasive species that is not native to that particular geographic area, so no products are currently approved for use against it;
- The only effective solution is to use a product containing a non-approved active substance (which may be a “new” substance which is not yet approved, or a substance that was previously approved but has been withdrawn, or a substance that had been denied approval altogether, or a substance that has never been approved in the EU).
Please visit the European Commission’s Emergency Authorizations database to see the emergency approvals granted by EU countries. For more information on the EU’s standard approval procedure, see the European Commission’s "Approval of active substances" page.
For more detail, please consult the text of the EU’s plant protection regulation. The wording of Article 53 of this regulation, which pertains to emergency authorizations, can be found below.