REVIEW Program

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Prior to the entry into force of the direct-acting Biocidal Products Regulation on 1 September 2013, control of biocidal products and their active ingredients was achieved through national laws implementing the Biocidal Products Directive (BPD). This Directive, like the Biocidal Products Regulation now, set out a two-stage process involving first the approval of active substances and then the authorisation of biocidal products in which they are contained. In order to achieve this process, the first step was to assess all biocidal active substances on the market when the Directive came into force (14 May 2000). These active substances were termed ‘existing active substances’ and a 10-year work programme to assess them was controlled by a series of Review Regulations. The Review Programme established under these Regulations did not meet the original deadlines set, meaning that at the point the Biocidal Products Regulation entered into force (revoking the BPD and the national legislation implementing it), only 49 active substances (used within product types 8, 14, 18 and 19) had been assessed.

As of 1 January 2014, responsibility for the review programme was passed to ECHA. The updated Review Programme, Regulation 1062/2014, was enacted in October 2014. Annex II to the Review Programme regulation contains - in Part 1 - a list of the active substances included in the Review Programme and the product-types to be considered; in Part 2 of Annex II there is a list of the active substance/product-type combinations not supported on 4 August 2014. Anyone wishing to take over the role of participant must notify ECHA via R4BP by 30 October 2015 per the procedure in Article 17 of Regulation 1062/2014. If no such notification is made, or is rejected, the combination will be subject to a non-approval decision and affected biocidal products will need to be removed from the EU market

Listed below are the deadlines for ECHA to start preparing its opinion on the approval of active substances to the European Commission: