4. Regulations

4.1 European regulations

In Europe, the marketing of biostimulants is still regulated at national level, with major disparities between countries. European regulation 2019/1009, published in June 2019, will not come into force until July 2022 and will only apply to biostimulants marketed with the CE logo; it will not replace national regulations. The regulation defines harmonized quality criteria, sanitary rules, labeling rules and claims. It should be emphasized that these rules and claims will have to be validated by a certifying body on the basis of standardized analysis methods at European level. An enormous amount of standardization work therefore needs to be completed before July 2022, when the regulation comes into force. The major advantage of this European regulation is that...