Economic impact assessment of invasive plant pests in the European Union

According to the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures (SPS Agreement) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), phytosanitary measures should be economically justifiable. The economic impact assessments within a pest risk analysis are currently based on a framework with qualitative questions and not on an explicit quantification of costs. Available quantitative methodologies to assess plant health risks, and in particular economic impacts, are currently hardly applied in the assessment of plant health risks for the EU, restricting the economic justification of plant health policies