Report on the implementation of Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 concerning statistics on pesticides

Article 7 of Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides stipulates that:
"The Commission shall submit a report on the implementation of this Regulation to the European Parliament and the Council every five years. This report shall evaluate in particular the quality of data transmitted, the data collection methods, the burden on businesses, agricultural holdings and national administrations and the usefulness of these statistics in the context of the Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides in particular with regard to the objectives set out in Article 1. It shall, if appropriate, contain proposals designed to further improve data quality and data collection methods thereby improving the coverage and comparability of data and reducing the burden on businesses, agricultural holdings, and national administrations. The first report shall be submitted by 31 December 2016."

According to Article 2(a) of the Regulation, 'pesticides' refer to 'a plant protection product (PPP) as defined in Article 2(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 or to a biocidal product as defined in Article 2(1) of Directive 98/8/EC'. The Regulation stipulates that the Member States must transmit annually to the Commission their statistical data on pesticides placed on the market each year (pesticide sales statistics). In addition, they must provide statistics on pesticides used in agriculture (pesticide use statistics) in five-year periods. The data should include confidential data. The Member States also have to provide the Commission with reports on the quality of the data transmitted, and the Commission in turn has to assess the quality of this data.

For pesticides placed on the market, the reference period is the calendar year. The first reference period was the second calendar year following 30 December 2009. Data is to be transmitted within 12 months of the end of the reference year, while the quality reports are due 3 months later. The data and quality reports transmitted so far cover reference years 2011 to 2014 inclusive. For statistics on the use of pesticides in agriculture, the reference period must be a period of a maximum of 12 months within each five-year period. The first five-year period started in the first calendar year following 30 December 2009. These data and quality reports are expected within 12 months of the end of each five-year period. The transmission of the data and quality reports of the first five-year period (reference years 2010-2014 inclusive) thus concluded in December 2015.

For both sets of data, the Commission (Eurostat) must aggregate the data before publication, taking due account to protect confidential data from the Member States. This means that the Commission (Eurostat) cannot provide any statistics on individual active substances.

The current report provides an overall assessment of the quality of the pesticide sales data transmitted by the Member States. This assessment is generated from the quality reports provided by the Member States as required by Article 4 of the Regulation. The quality criteria applied are laid down in Article 12(1) Statistical quality of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009. The validation of the quality reports for the pesticide use statistics has not yet been finalised, and they are therefore not analysed.