До края на април registration and update in the phytosanitary control system of the BFSA is underway

Pursuant to the adopted amendments to the Plant Protection Act, promulgated in the State Gazette on 21 July 2020, and pursuant to EU Regulation 2016/2031 of 26 October 2016 on protective measures against pests of plants, the deadline for registration and updating is 30 April 2021. This is regulated in Article 22 of the Act and mainly concerns persons who produce and/or grow potatoes, fruit planting material, strawberries and raspberries, as well as those who will establish permanent crops with seed or planting material imported from abroad.

Initially, this shall be carried out by 30 April of the year in which the activity is commenced. For this purpose, the above-mentioned persons shall submit to the Regional Directorate for Food Safety (RDFS), in whose territory they will carry out their activity, an application form under the conditions and in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 66 of Regulation (EU) 2016/2031. In the event that the activity will be carried out in the territory of more than one RDFS, the application submitted to one of the directorates shall be forwarded ex officio to the others.

The effect of the registration and, respectively, of the certificate is indefinite, but every year by 30 April the persons registered under Article 22 shall submit to the respective RDFS:

• a declaration of no change in the circumstances entered in the register, or

• an application and documents certifying the updating of the data from the previous year – in the event of a change in the circumstances (pursuant to Article 66, paragraph 2 of Regulation (EU) 2016/2031).

It is important to know that Article 32 and Annex No. 5, Part A of Ordinance No. 8 of 27 February 2015 on phytosanitary control, issued by the Minister of Agriculture and Food (promulgated in SG No. 19 of 13 March 2015), lay down the exhaustive list of persons subject to registration in the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency phytosanitary control system.

The experts of the National Agricultural Advisory Service (NAAS) provide information and consultations regarding the regulatory requirements related to plant protection to all interested farmers, who can receive it free of charge on site or by telephone from any regional office of NAAS. For the period 2019–2020, the experts of NAAS have provided farmers with 1,912 consultations focused on “Registration with BFSA (plant protection), keeping of records and issuance of documents”, and for the first 5 weeks of 2021 the number of persons consulted is 51.