EFSA methodology for assessing the impact of plant pests to ecosystem services

In 2022, EFSA was mandated by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (M-2022-00070) to provide technical assistance on the list of Union quarantine pests qualifying as priority pests, as specified in Article 6(2) of Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 on protective measures against plant pests. As part of Task B of the mandate, EFSA further developed the method for assessing the environmental impact of candidate priority pests, then applied it to the 46 candidate priority pests as part of Task C. This report details the theoretical principles and their application for assessing the impact on ecosystem services caused by plant pests. This approach is conceived to be embedded in the full process of quantitative risk assessment already applied at EFSA.