Frankfurt, December 2023 — EuroWindoor has been closely monitoring the renewal process of Propiconazole – for its use in Product Type 8 – for the past 3 years. Propiconazole is an Active Substance use in wood preservatives to prevent the development of wood-rotting and wood-discolouring fungi, widely used in the wooden windows and door industry.
Due to a reclassification in 2018, the substance fell under an exclusion criteria – in theory banning its use for wood preservatives according to the BPR – which threatened the entire wood industry for all outdoor applications, including windows and doors. The sector has until now no equivalent alternative to Propiconazole to efficiently protect wood from decay, but EuroWindoor is expecting reliable alternative to be available on European market by 2028.
Multiple industry leaders have been working on identifying and testing potential alternatives for several years now, but efficacy test require a 5-years exposure under extreme weather conditions before being approved for use in the industry.
This situation has led EuroWindoor to raising awareness toward authorities by reaching out to the Biocidal Product Committee (BPC), the European Commission as well as representatives from European Member States. EuroWindoor also organized a webinar for experts involved in the renewal process of Propiconazole, published several analysis highlighting the absence of suitable alternatives, and answered two public consultations (link 1 and link 2) to reflect the industry’s need for an extension of Propiconazole’s approval to find robust alternatives.
After a 3-years process and 3 consequence administrative prolongations to allow for in-depth risk analysis, the European Commission has recently published an Implementing Decision to renew the approval of Propiconazole until November 2030 for its use in wooden windows and doors (Use Class 2, Use Class 3.1 and Use Class 3.2).
This decision was welcomed by the industry as it will give the sector enough time to thoroughly test and implement alternative solutions in due time. EuroWindoor recommend manufacturers who have not net started to test alternative solutions (e.g. based on the substance Penflufen) to immediately start doing so in order to secure solutions compatible with local needs.
EuroWindoor is still closely monitoring the enforcement of this implementing decision, especially labelling of treated articles (see Annex of Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/2596) and will keep informing its members of the conditions for the labelling.
Press Contact:
Miriam Weppler
EuroWindoor General Secretariat
Walter-Kolb-Str. 1-7
60594 Frankfurt / Germany
Phone: +49 (69) 95 50 54 – 36
Fax: +49 (69) 95 50 54 – 11
Email: GS@EuroWindoor.eu