Congratulations ......
It was very uplifting that so many NPTA members took on board the plea, that appeared in the April ’NPTA News’, to write to MEPs to show support against the EU proposal to ban anti-coagulants.

As well as the tremendous amount of support from members, the NPTA also wrote to all the MEPs and the media. The NPTA has worked exceedingly hard on your behalf and has attended meetings, conducted interviews for television, newspapers and radio stations and has pushed to make the relevant bodies aware of the proposal and get all those parties on board to help fight the proposal.

The good news is that the ENVI committee accepted the amendment from Christa Klass which means that anti-coagulants will be allowed to be sold and used for all the usual purposes. Well done to everyone who contacted their MEPs!

However, they also accepted an amendment which will mean that difenacoum can only be used in tamper-resistant boxes and by professional pest controllers. This amendment may well be changed before the regulations come into force because there is no common definition of professional users in the EU. In some countries it will include farmers but in other countries it may exclude them. This will make it impossible to enforce with any consistency.

This restriction will probably also apply to other active ingredients in due course if it is not changed.

Our original report...

A new regulation coming before the European Parliament’s Environment Committee on 26-28 April threatens to remove all anticoagulant rodenticides from the market across the EU from 2013, preventing effective rat and mouse control in most situations.

The threat arises from the specific exclusion of these active ingredients from the proposed Article 5.1(c) derogation allowing them key Annex I listing as permitted EU biocides where ‘it can be shown that not including them would cause disproportionate negative impacts when compared with the risk to human health or the environment arising from the use of the substance and that there are no suitable alternative substances or technologies’.

An argument being used is that we can use article 5b but we are concerned that there is a possibility that the proposed Article 5.1(b) derogation to retain biocides where ‘it is shown that the active substance is necessary to control a serious danger to public health’ would limit the use of anticoagulant rodenticide's to the protection of public health only, so they would not be available for the protection of animal health, structures or the environment.

Read the NPTA's document here PDF 47kb).

Read 'why we should be concerned' (PDF 51kb).

Read an impact assessment here (PDF 93kb).

We urge members to draft and forward their own letter to their local MP. To find details of your local MP, visit this website and enter your postcode.

Here are two draft letter examples in Microsoft Word format which can be adapted for your own use. Right click - choose 'save as'.

1) Short letter (25kb)

2) Long letter (31kb)

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