With the BMEL workshop "Guidelines on the plant protection policy – reduction programmes, communication and transparency" 2002 in Potsdam (Potsdam I)  a extensive dialogue of plant protection policy in Germany was started.

On such basis the "Reduction programme of chemical plant protection" was developed and published in 2004. It was designed as a dynamic programme without time limit that should be further developed in dependence of the programme’s progress. Initial experiences in the years 2005 to 2007 confirmed the effectiveness of this approach. Altogether three annual reports on this Reduction Programme were submitted.

Reduktionsprogramm chemischer Pflanzenschutz Jahresbericht 2005 (pdf file in German)
Reduktionsprogramm chemischer Pflanzenschutz Jahresbericht 2006 (pdf file in German)
Reduktionsprogramm chemischer Pflanzenschutz Jahresbericht 2007 (pdf file in German)

National Action Plan on Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products 2008

In April 2008 the National Action Plan on Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products (NAP) was published as a further development of the reduction programme for chemical plant protection. This NAP already contained many elements that all EU member states have to implement on the basis of the Directive 2009/128/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 21 October 2009, establishing a framework for Community action to achieve  the sustainable use of pesticides (Sustainable Use Directive).

National Action Plan 2008 (pdf file)

On the 2008 National Action Plan the Julius Kühn-Institut in cooperation with the Länder has drawn up and published a report on the years 2008 to 2011.

Nationaler Aktionsplan zur nachhaltigen Anwendung von Pflanzenschutzmitteln - Bericht 2008 bis 2011 (pdf file in German)

Since 2009 and with the participation of the forum, the NAP was further developed to implement the Sustainable Use Directive. Such development was launched with an expert’s workshop of BMEL at Potsdam from 23 to 25 June 2009 (Potsdam III). A key issues paper defining the framework of the NAP’s development was adopted there.

Key Points Document of the Expert Workshop Potsdam 2009 (pdf file)

Material contents for the new NAP were worked out both at the forums held in 2009, 2010 and 2011 and at the working groups conducted in 2010 and 2011.

EU Expert Meeting on National Action Plans on Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products took place in Berlin (Germany) on June 5-6 in 2012. 23 delegates from 16 Member States (AT, BE, BG, CZ, DE, DK, EE, FI, FR, GB, IE, LT, LV, PL, SE, RO) took part in the meeting. The objective was information exchange about the implementation of the sustainable use directive 2009/128/EC, but mainly focused on the status of development and main areas of action within the national action plans. Presentations were given by 13 MS (AT, BE, CZ, DE, DK, EE, FI, FR, GB, LT, LV, PL); BG provided a written summary of the state of the art. The goal of the discussion about current achievements, positive experiences, gaps and bottlenecks was to encourage the final work for preparing the action plans until the end of this year.

Workshop Report EU Expert Meeting 2012 (pdf file)

The contributions of the Member States to the Expert Meeting are available on request: contact

National Action Plan on Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products 2013

The current, now the third, National Action Plan on Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products was enacted by the Federal Government on 10th April 2013.

German National Action Plan 2013 (pdf file )