From 1 September 2008, a new EC Regulation (396/2005) comes into force that will harmonise all pesticide MRLs for the EU.

Under this legislation, the European Food Safety Authority will assess MRL applications for new pesticides. The new regulation also provides for the setting of a default limit of 0.01 mg/kg for all pesticide/commodity combinations for which no MRLs have been set (unless MRLs are not required or different defaults have been fixed).

This is a very low legal limit for particular pesticide cases where insufficient residues information has been provided. The result will be a substantial increase in the number of pesticide/commodity combinations with legal limits, and the potential for an increase in Pesticide Residues Committee (PRC) reports of MRL exceedances. However, this does not mean that more residues have exceeded safety levels.