Under the auspices of IPGRI (International Plant Genetics Resources Institute) and with the support of EuropeanUnion from 1996 to 1999, a European network on Prunus Genetic resources has been progressively organizedin the context of European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks (ECP/GR). More than20 countries are involved in the survey of national collections, the elaboration of the different descriptors fortheir documentation, and the development of the European Prunus database (EPDB). At present, the permanentcollections gathered more than 8000 accessions for which passport and characterization data are registered in theEPDB. EPDB has been made available on the Internet. The objectives of the Prunus working group are to defineand implement the European Prunus Collection (ECP) on the basis of a common strategy for the Rosaceae fruitgroups