Article 76Secretariat of the Agency
1.The Secretariat of the Agency referred to in point (g) of Article 76(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 shall undertake the following tasks:
(a)establishing and maintaining the Register for Biocidal Products;
(b)performing the tasks relating to the acceptance of the applications covered by this Regulation;
(c)establishing technical equivalence;
(d)providing technical and scientific guidance and tools for the application of this Regulation by the Commission and Member States’ competent authorities and providing support to national helpdesks;
(e)providing advice and assistance to applicants, in particular to SMEs, for the approval of an active substance or its inclusion in Annex I to this Regulation or for a Union authorisation;
(f)preparing explanatory information on this Regulation;
(g)establishing and maintaining database(s) with information on active substances and biocidal products;
(h)at the request of the Commission, providing technical and scientific support to improve cooperation between the Union competent authorities, international organisations and third countries on scientific and technical issues relating to biocidal products;
(i)notification of decisions taken by the Agency;
(j)specification of formats and software packages for the submission of information to the Agency;
(k)providing support and assistance to Member States in order to avoid the parallel assessment of applications relating to the same or similar biocidal products referred to in Article 29(4);
2.The Secretariat shall make the information identified in Article 67 publicly available, free of charge, over the internet, except where a request made under Article 66(4) is considered justified. The Agency shall make other information available on request in accordance with Article 66.