On maximum residue levels, the Council keeps the Commission's principle of lowering limits to technical zero for imported food and feed containing residues of particularly hazardous pesticides no longer usable in the EU, and extends the scope to substances posing unacceptable risks to honeybees or groundwater, with transitional provisions possible to avoid food waste. For plant protection products, biocontrol substances would receive priority assessment and low-risk active substances would be approved without time limit, while approval periods for other substances would extend to 15 years for first approvals and 25 years for renewals, with exceptions. These longer periods are accompanied by a periodic review of scientific literature and monitoring data by EFSA and a more cautious treatment of certain carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic substances.

The mandate also extends the protection of test and study data from 10 to 13 years for regular products and from 13 to 15 years for low-risk products, with the data held in a new EU-level database. It keeps time-limited approvals for biocides with the same 15 and 25-year periods, removes the systematic renewal requirement for most feed additives and enables digital labelling, and clarifies that fermentation products made with genetically modified microorganisms are not food or feed produced from GMOs, backed by Commission guidance on good manufacturing practice. Negotiations with the Parliament will begin once it adopts its position, building on the Commission's December 2025 proposals.

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