12^th Meeting of the Panel on PRA

Paris, 2004-03-16/19

The Panel on PRA met in Paris in 2004-03-16/10. It continued the revision of the EPPO Standards PM 5/3 on pest risk assessment and PM 5/4 on pest risk management. The objective of the revision is to align the EPPO schemes to ISPM 11 on Pest Risk Analysis for Quarantine Pest and its supplement on Pest Risk Analysis for Quarantine Pest including analysis of environmental risks, to avoid any possible contradiction and missing recommended steps. The Panel confirmed that the EPPO schemes on PRA should be maintained even if ISPMs on PRA have been approved as they provide a system for practical operation of PRA. In particular, the Panel requested the EPPO Secretariat to prepare an EPPO standard for PRA for Regulated Non-Quarantine Pests (RNQP) on the basis of the ISPM on PRA for RNQP.

The Panel also discussed the role that the Organization could play in Pest Risk Analysis and agreed that increasing the number and quality of PRAs in the EPPO region was vital. The Panel discussed the organization of the EPPO Workshop on PRA to be held in Budapest in 2004-10-05/07. Finally, the Panel was informed about the recent developments of the International Plant Health Risk Assessment Network and members were encouraged to take an active part to it.