75th Meeting of the Panel on Global Phytosanitary Affairs
Teleconferences, 2020-04-01/08/16 and 22
This year the April meeting of the EPPO Panel on Global Phytosanitary Affairs was organized as a series of teleconferences. The face to face meeting of this Panel, planned in Paris on 2020-04-14/16, had to be cancelled as a consequence of the Covid-19 outbreak. The 15th session of the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM-15) was postponed, as well as all the EPPO events planned around the session.
The Panel meeting was held as a series of teleconferences and focussed on the draft Standards, which were for consultation amongst the members of the Standards Committee (SC). The Panel studied the drafts in order to provide inputs from the EPPO region to European SC members. Discussions focussed on the following drafts:
- the revision of ISPM 12 Phytosanitary Certificates focussing on the aspects related to re-export
- the draft ISPM on audit in the phytosanitary context
- the amendments to ISPM 5 Glossary of Phytosanitary terms
The fourth teleconference was held to discuss the remaining items of the Panel agenda.
Panel members were updated on recent IPPC discussions, including those of the CPM Bureau and Implementation and Capacity Development Committee (IC), the progress of the activities of the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH) in 2020 and the preparations for CPM-15.
The Panel also discussed the progress of a number of strategic issues, including the preparation of IPPC Commodity Standards, sea containers, authorization of entities to perform phytosanitary actions, ePhyto, and eCommerce.
The next meeting of the EPPO Panel on Global Phytosanitary Affairs is planned to take place in conjunction with the IPPC/FAO Regional Workshop for Europe and Central Asia to be held in September 2020.
