June 10 and 11, 2026, the ANSES-Fougeres Laboratory organized its workshop to the attention of the network of NRLs from the 27 Member States of the Union, celebrating the 30th edition of this annual event held since 1994.   The workshop welcomed 33 participants representing most of the NRLs of the EU Member States as well as the official laboratories of certain candidate countries (Albania, Montenegro, and Serbia this year), one country from the EFTA zone (Switzerland), and one country associated with the EU (Northern Ireland). These sessions provided the network with another opportunity for useful and interactive dialogue with the Commission and with the EFSA IDATA team and presenting regulatory developments at the European level: the one for validating the analytical performance of the official control methods (CIR 2021/808) and those implemented now for the 3rd year regarding the 3 levels of control and surveillance plans in accordance with CDR (EU) 2022/1644 and CIR (EU) 2022/1646, pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2017/625. These 2 days of presentations and discussions also provided an opportunity to further explore 2 current topics within the European VMP residue framework, i.e. the analytical performance of nitrofuran controls in honey, on the one hand, and new approaches to monitoring exposure to medicinal chemicals using high-resolution liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS/MS) detection/confirmation technologies, on the other hand. A special thank you to our EU-NRL attendees and to both our scientific and logistic teams, who organized this key event in our European activities with adequateness and enthusiasm.

The 17th edition of the Workshop for Rabies took place in Padova, Italy, on 19 and 20 May 2026. It was with pleasure that everyone gathered to meet and discuss the latest news about rabies in Europe and future projects. The presentations given during the workshop have been uploaded into the EURL website (accessible only to network members).   This workshop for rabies was followed by a OneBat training session on May 20 and 21, organized by EURL for Rabies and IZSVe, and numerous scientific partners. This edition was dedicated to bat health monitoring.   Finally, the EURL team would like to sincerely thank all the participants and all the people who contributed in one way or another to the organization of those wonderful events.                                                                                               

In response to the emergence of SAT1/III in the Middle East and European Union between 2025 and 2026, the following real-time RT-PCR assay (SAT1/III “BOT/1/77 like”) has been tested on few samples from this topotype. Data from EURL from FMD indicate that this assay is able to detect viruses from the SAT/III clade that is actually present in EU and Middle East. At this stage, this is a candidate assay that has not been extensively validated and further work is underway at the EURL and WRL for FMD.

EURL GUIDANCE : EURL “MMPR” GUIDANCE FOR SPECIFIC PHARMACOLOGICALLY ACTIVE SUBSTANCES IN SPECIFIC ANIMAL MATRICES Version 3.1 of  June 2026 repealing Version 3.0 of April 2026;    Published on 02/06/2026

 A new 'Question to EURCAW' (Q2E) has been published on “ Second stunning in broilers”.   To see more, take a look at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19346203 and at our Question to EURCAW's subpage! 

An outbreak of Foot-and-Mouth Disease has been reported in Greece (Island of Lesbos) in domestic cattle since 16 March 2026. Identification of serotype is pending. This is the fifth case within the EU since 2025. For more information: WAHIS

An outbreak of Foot-and-Mouth Disease has been reported in Cyprus in domestic cattle since 19 February 2026. 33 outbreaks have been detected up to now, related to serotype SAT1. This is the fourth case within the EU since 2025. For more information: WAHIS

The fifth Reflection Board meeting between representatives of RB organisations (from the EU Platform on Animal Welfare) and the EURCAW-Poultry-SFA was held remotely via Teams on January, 16th 2026 afternoon.   In total 16 participants, eight of them from the eight EU platform entities forming the RB, two from DG SANTE, and six from EURCAW-Poultry-SFA, were connected.  This meeting was the occasion to present the activities carried out and outcomes achieved by the Centre since the last meeting, the current Work Programme of the Centre, and to get their feedback and exchange, discuss and identify possible future collaborations and interests.    The presentations is available  here. The topics discussed can be found in the meeting report here. 

7 more EURCAW-Poultry-SFA factsheets have been translated into German!   Take a look here! 

EURL GUIDANCE : EURL Guidance Document on Stability Studies in the Field of the Analysis of Residues of Pharmacologically Active Substances Version 1.1 of January 2026;   Published on 03/02/2026