EU: Amendments to the fertilizing products regulation

The EU Commission has published a draft delegated regulation amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the conformity assessment procedures for EU fertilising products.

Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 establishes the rules for placing EU fertilising products on the market. Such products can only be made available if they have successfully undergone the relevant conformity assessment procedure outlined in Annex IV of the Regulation.

For ammonium nitrate fertilisers with a high nitrogen content, the applicable conformity assessment procedure—described in Module A1 of Annex IV, Part II—includes detonation resistance testing and preceding thermal cycles. These tests must be carried out by a laboratory selected by the manufacturer and supervised by a notified body. Given the explosive potential of ammonium nitrate fertilisers, it is essential that the results of these tests are accurate and trustworthy. Therefore, only laboratories accredited by a national accreditation body for these specific activities should be eligible to perform them.

Module D1 of Annex IV, Part II, of Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 requires notified bodies to conduct periodic audits as part of the conformity assessment. In the case of fertilising products containing recovered component materials, the audit frequency is currently tied to how often output material is sampled, as specified in Annex IV. This leads to a high audit burden for manufacturers producing large volumes—potentially up to 48 audits annually. To ensure the audit requirements remain proportionate, the audit frequency should be decoupled from the sampling frequency. Instead, a standard audit frequency of one audit per year should be introduced. This adjustment would simplify the conformity assessment process for circular EU fertilising products with recovered materials, while maintaining safety standards through continued frequent sampling.

To facilitate a smooth transition for manufacturers, the changes to Module A1 should apply to thermal cycles and detonation resistance tests six months after this Regulation enters into force.

For further updates regarding the compliance of fertilizing products, do not hesitate to contact the Product Compliance Institute.