BIOCIDES
commercial practices in respect of biocidal products falling within product types ( PTs ) 14 and 18 . The second introduced a prohibition on advertising to the general public of PTs 14 and 18 , as well as PTs 2 and 4 where products are classified as hazardous to the aquatic environment category . 1
While the case has been referred back to the national court for application of the CJEU ruling to the facts at hand , the CJEU ’ s interpretation opened the door to further rules on labelling
Term Bio Natur / nature / natura Organic Eco / ecological
Exception Biocide / biocidal , biofilm Denatured
Green • Description of the colour ( e . g . green liquid )
Safe Med / medi / medical
Table 1 – List of terms in final document and advertisement of biocidal products going beyond the provisions of the BPR .
Guidance from MSCAs
In March 2023 , the EC presented a proposal to address misleading terms in biocidal product trade names to the MSCAs for biocidal products . 4 The proposal was further discussed at the June and September 2023 meetings of the MSCAs .
They agreed to proceed with a general prohibition of potentially misleading terms as prefix or suffix in
• PT 2 : If ‘ green ’ is a reference to the target organism ( e . g . green algae ) trade names of any biocidal products , instead of doing case-by-case or product-by-product assessment . A middle way , which unfortunately was not retained , would have been to use the list of potentially misleading terms as a presumption that applicants for authorisation could have sought to rebut based on the specifies of the case .
A non-exhaustive list of terms not allowed in trade names of biocidal products has been put forward , with the suggestion that it should be reviewed annually . While the list is being finalised , the terms shown in Table 1 are identified as misleading . The new rules for trade names will be applied as follows :
• Ongoing applications for national & Union authorisation : Immediate application - if a trade name contains any of misleading terms , it must be removed or changed before an authorisation is granted
• Products already authorised under the BPR : The new rules will be applied at the renewal stage or earlier at the request of the applicant
• Biocidal products subject to the transitional rules : The new rules ‘ may be applied ’. It will be up to the MSs how their market surveillance authorities implement these new rules – this may result in inconsistent approaches , particularly as the transitional rules differ widely from one MS to another
• Biocidal products on the market pursuant to Article 55 ( 1 ) of the BPR : The new rules will not apply As an exception to the general prohibition of using misleading terms in trade names of biocides , those terms will be allowed , in so far as they are contained in the company name and the company name is used as part of the product trade name . For example , a trade name containing only ‘ eco ’ would not be allowed , while trade name including a company name containing ‘ eco ’ such as ‘ Ecolab ’ would be allowed .
Notes agreed by MSCAs for biocidal products are not legally binding . Although the authorities generally
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