6th Meeting of the Panel on Plant Protection Information
EPPO Headquarters, Paris, 2018-10-04/05
The Panel finalized the EPPO Standard on how to raise public awareness on regulated pests and emerging pests. This draft will be sent for country consultation at the end of 2018, and hopefully presented for approval to the Working Party on Phytosanitary Regulations and Council in 2019. While discussing the necessity to include examples of successful national communication campaigns in the text, the Panel considered that it would be more convenient that the EPPO Secretariat develops a web-based database where countries could share their communication material.
The new EPPO website (launched during summer 2018) was well-received by the Panel and proposals for further improvements were made.
Concerning the EPPO Global Database (GD), the Panel suggested that information on host plants could be better substantiated with sources, and that new links could be made between vectors and the regulated pests they transmit. The EPPO Secretariat will explore the possibilities to add these new functionalities into GD. The Panel also discussed the EPPO project on the revision of the EPPO datasheets which will be associated with the development of dynamically updated datasheets within GD. It is intended that this project will be launched in 2019.
The new EPPO Platform for PRAs was demonstrated to the Panel. EPPO member countries will be encouraged to upload and share their PRA documents on this new platform. A restricted area will also provide NPPOs with the possibility to share draft documents.
This meeting was also the opportunity for the EPPO Secretariat to present other EPPO information services (e.g. EPPO Reporting Service, EPPO Codes, EPPO Bulletin), as well as the communication kits, to gather useful feedback from Panel members.
The EPPO Secretariat would like to warmly thank all Panel members for their active participation and their most useful suggestions. The next meeting will take place in early 2020, but a teleconference in February/March 2019 will probably be necessary to address comments received during the country consultation on the draft Standard.