14^th Meeting of the Panel on PRA

York (GB), 2005-03-22/24

The Panel on PRA met in York at the kind invitation of the British NPPO. The Panel finalized a revised version of the EPPO Standards PM 5/3 on pest risk assessment and PM 5/4 on pest risk management. The objective of the revision was 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. Panel members insisted on the need to produce a computer version of the PRA scheme.

The Panel discussed the procedure for the approval of PRA Standards and recommended that unlike other EPPO standards, the revised version combining pest risk assessment and pest risk management should be presented to the Working Party every year in June, and should become the current version for the next year. This version should be published on the website. It should not be submitted for consultation or be presented to the Executive Committee or Council.

As a follow-up of the EPPO Workshop for heads of NPPOs in Sochi recommending that EPPO should play a major role in organizing internationally conducted PRA in the EPPO region, the Panel made a proposal of a structure for performing PRA. This proposed structure will be presented to the Working Party on Phytosanitary Regulations and to the Executive Committee and Council. The proposed structure includes recommendations on the establishment of priorities for conducting PRAs, composition of the Panel, documentation of PRAs (including collection of information, as well as review of PRA reports), number of PRAs to be conducted, number and duration of meetings. Financial issues linked to the establishment of such structure were also discussed.

Panel members were encouraged to take part to the International Plant Health Risk Analysis Workshop (Canada, Niagara Falls 2005-10-24/28).