The European Commission, together with the Dutch authorities, recently hosted a workshop focusing on controls at large distribution centres storing pesticides for use throughout the EU. Weaknesses in controls at this critical point of the distribution chain had been identified in numerous Member States in a recent audit series carried out by the audit and analysis directorate of the Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Food Safety. The overview report on this series will be published before the summer. This workshop, which took place in Rotterdam on 15 and 16 February, and had sixteen Member States participate, follows the establishment in 2016 of two Working Groups dedicated to pesticide enforcement issues. This demonstrates the commitment of the European Commission and the Member States to ensure that only pesticides which have passed a rigorous evaluation are marketed and used in the EU, so as provide the highest possible level of assurance to citizens, while protecting sustainable EU based jobs in this innovative industry.