Third European Workshop on the inspection of plant protection equipment – Inspections will become compulsory in the EU

Abstract

The SPISE 3-Workshop took place from 22 to 24 Sep­tember 2009 in Brno (CZ) and was attended by 100 participants from 27 European countries. The Workshop was organised by the SPISE Working Group (SWG), to which representatives from Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany belong (Chairman: Dr.-Ing. H. Ganzelmeier).

The participants came from inspection and research institutes, administration and private companies and brought with them the necessary technical expertise. This is why the emphasis at the Workshop in Brno was above all on the practical implementation of the European regulations for equipment inspections. The European Commission's representatives were from DG-Environment and DG-Enterprise. The European organisations ECPA, CEMA and COPA also took part.

The SPISE 3-Workshop met with a very positive response, demonstrated by the 100 experts who took part from 27 European countries. The new European Directive binds the Member States to introduce a technical inspection for plant protection equipment which takes place on a rotational basis by the year 2016. This does not pose a major technical demand on Germany since tech­nical inspections on a rotational basis (once every two years) have been compulsory for more than a decade for field sprayers and air-assisted sprayers for bush and tree cultures. However, from now on these regulations have to be agreed on together with the other Member States.

The draft prepared and presented by the SPISE Working Group, 'Proposal for uniform enforcement of inspection in the Member States', can be seen as a contribution on how equipment inspections according to Article 8 of the Framework Directive can be implemented in national legislation. As in the past SPISE-Workshops, the participants then expressed further recommendations and hopes in a resolution.