Priority pests

Priority pests are plant pests and pathogens regulated under EU law because of their potential to cause the most severe economic, environmental, or social impact. They are a subset of EU quarantine pests According to Regulation (EU) 2016/2031, a pest is a ‘quarantine pest’, with respect to a defined territory, if it fulfils all of the following conditions:(a) its identity is established;(b) it is not present in the territory or, if present, is not widely distributed within that territory;(c) it is capable of entering into, becoming established in and spreading within the territory, or, if present in the territory, but not widely distributed, is capable of entering into, becoming established in and spreading within those parts of that territory where it is absent;(d) its entry, establishment and spread would have an unacceptable economic, environmental or social impact on that territory, or, if present but not widely distributed, for those parts of the territory where it is absent; and(e) feasible and effective measures are available to prevent the entry into, establishment in or spread of that pest within, that territory and to mitigate the risks and impact thereof., which are pests subject to enhanced surveillance and control measures across EU Member States. Once listed as priority pests, countries must implement strict monitoring, contingency plans, eradication protocols, simulation exercises, and public awareness campaigns.

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23 Ιούλιος 2025

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EFSA’s role

EFSA provides scientific and technical support to the European Commission to help identify and assess priority pests. EFSA delivers biological and ecological data on pests and pathogens to support the Joint Research Centre (JRC) who ranks the pests in order of priority , and to support the European Commission and the EU Member States in the revision of the current list of priority pests. EFSA’s work enables better preparedness and targeted action against the most dangerous plant health threats.

How EFSA contributes to the ranking of EU quarantine pests

After developing the methodological assessment framework, EFSA carried out the following tasks:

Identified host plants for all quarantine pests – around 400 pests and pathogens (see Report on Task A)
Assisted in shortlisting candidate pests through an extensive literature review on the spread potential and observed impact of all quarantine pests (see Report on Task B).
Estimated the threat posed by 47 shortlisted pests to EU agriculture and the environment using expert knowledge elicitation structured way to obtain information from individuals with specialised expertise in a particular field and innovative approaches (see EFSA Methodology Report and Pest Reports below).

The resulting reports and datasets – including over 220 probability The likelihood that a particular event will occur or that a measured value will fall within a particular range distributions on estimated lag period, expansion rate and yield loss, and 150 estimated values for five environmental impact indicators – were shared with the Joint Research Centre to feed into the Impact Indicator for Priority Pests (I2P2) pest ranking model. This model will inform the future revision of the EU priority pest list.

Key documents and data

EFSA Pest Reports

The EFSA Pest A living organism (e.g. an insect, rodent, weed, fungus or virus) that is harmful to plants and/or their products (e.g. seeds, fruits) Reports and datasets are listed below: