Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 on placing plant protection products on the market and repealing Council Directives 79/117/EEC and 91/414/EEC forms the basis for Community legislation. It replaced Directive 91/414/EEC on 14 June 2011.

In accordance with the Regulation, plant protection products are liable to authorisation. Authorisations are issued by the Member States. According to the zonal procedure, authorisations can be applied for in several Member States at the same time who work together in the procedure. Under certain conditions existing authorisations from other Member States must be recognised in a simplified procedure.

Data requirements for plant protection products and their active substances were harmonised by Directive 91/414/EEC, uniform authorisation criteria were established and uniform rules for packaging and labelling were introduced. The most important element of harmonisation is an EU-wide positive list of active substances which are approved for use in plant protection products. Active substances are assessed in a Community procedure. All active substances which were on the market in 1993 were reviewed in a special programme. In the meantime, this programme for existing active substances has been finalised. Approvals are limited in time so that the active substances have to be re-assessed at regular intervals.

The European Commission has decided on a series of enforcement actions in the form of directives, regulations and decisions on the basis of previous Directive 91/414/EEC and Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009. These provisions are supplemented by technical guidance documents.

All documents concerning the provisions can be retrieved on the European Commission's website.