In response to the European Commission’s evaluation of the Fertilizing Products Regulation (FPR), CEN has submitted a response outlining key technical and regulatory concerns, as well as proposals for improvement.
The FPR was introduced to harmonize specifications for fertilizing products across the EU, aiming to simplify market access and improve product labelling. However, feedback from CEN experts highlights that several of these objectives remain unmet, particularly for SMEs and manufacturers.
This CEN reply draws on the expertise of two Technical Committees: CEN/TC 223 ‘Soil improvers and growing media’ and CEN/TC 260 ‘Fertilizers and liming materials’. It identifies key concerns and technical recommendations for the European Commission.
Key concerns raised by the Technical Committees are:
- The FPR is complex and not easy to comprehend in all cases, especially by SMEs. The complexity of the essential requirements of the Regulation has an impact on the development of the standards needed to support it.
- Limit values for human pathogens and other parameters have been set without the relevant European standards in place. Following typical scientific practice, analytical standards should be developed first, and then limit values are set.
- Due to inappropriate specifications set in the FPR, long-established growing media components are non-compliant and cannot be used.
CEN remains committed to supporting the European Commission in improving the FPR framework. Furthermore, CEN is available to engage in further dialogue and provide additional input as interlaboratory studies progress and more data becomes available.
The feedback submitted by CEN will inform the European Commission’s summary report to the European Parliament and Council, ensuring that the views of the standardization community are reflected in the legislative debate.
The CEN response submitted can be found on the website of the European Commission here. The full document is available here.
