Workshops report for cooperation in crisis preparedness for Phyllosticta citricarpa in the European Union

The European Commission (DG SANTE) requested the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) (EFSA mandate M‐2017‐00137), to support and assist the EU Member States (MSs) in the preparation and design of plant pest surveys. The MSs selected Phyllosticta citricarpa as a pilot organism for developing survey guidelines. In this context, a grant agreement was established between MESDC‐Plant Protection Directorate (PPD) and EFSA for improving the crisis preparedness for P. citricarpa in the European Union. This report is the outcome of a cooperation project between the citrus growing EU MSs. In the context of EFSA's ongoing activities in plant health surveillance, two workshops were co‐organised by the Maltese Ministry for the Environment, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Plant Protection Directorate (MESDC‐PPD) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), aiming at sharing, developing and improving, together with the MSs, a harmonised statistically sound and risk based survey approach for P. citricarpa. The proposed methodological framework provides practical toolsthat support the MSs from the survey preparation to the survey design enabling their integration in the MSs contingency plans for the organism, including the identification of common actions for the control, containment and eradication. Also, the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization's (EPPO) contributed to the workshops with their expertise on diagnostic protocols and contingency planning.