Marcus Navin-Jones of Keller & Heckman have assessed the likely impact of the new Biocidal Products Regulation on the key issue of treated articles. The current Biocidal Products Directive (BPD) does not define what is meant by the term 'treated article' and the term itself does not appear in the legal text. It was initially developed in the US under the US Federal Insecticide, Fungicide & Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and has been further developed in the EU in Guidance and the BPD Manual of Decisions. The term 'treated article' is now commonly used in the EU to mean an article which as been treated with a biocidal product where the biocidal product has the intention of either controlling organisms harmful to the treated article itself (internal effect) or controlling harmful organisms outside the treated articles (external effect).
The BPR has not yet been finally adopted by the European Council. However, following the European Parliament vote of 19 January 2012 and the deal struck on 23 November 2011 after trilogue discussions between the Parliament, the Council and the EC, the new provisions on treated articles are in substantively final form.