HUGUES KENIGSWALD
Head of Unit, Biocides Assessment, European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), Helsinki, Finland

One of the main aims of the Biocidal Products Regulation is to improve the way the EU biocides market works. To this end, the regulation introduced a new centralised route to allow companies to place their biocidal products on the entire EU market without the need to get national authorisations from different Member States: Union authorisation. The first biocidal products have now successfully gone through the process and received Union authorisations. 

HARMONISED APPROACH

The first EU-wide authorisations were granted in September 2018 to four companies for their disinfectant products. 

So far, over 150 applications for Union authorisation have been submitted, and it is a growing trend.

While national authorisations are managed by individual Member States, Union authorisation is coordinated centrally by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and the final decision comes from the EU countries and the European Commission. This can help streamline the authorisation process, as all authorities from each EU country are seated around the ...