Commission to 'reinforce significantly' controls on all agri-food products from January
The European Commission today (Tuesday, December 9) confirmed that from January it will "reinforce significantly" the level of controls both in the EU and outside, on food, plants and animals.
The EU Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare, Oliver Varhelyi, announced during a press conference in Brussels that the commisson plans to "improve even further the controls and the enforcement" on agri-food imports.
Commissioner Varhelyi said that protecting "the safety of food consumed in the EU is one of my core responsibilities".
"This applies not only to products made within our union but also to those we import.
"As the world’s leading trader of food, the EU must ensure that any animal, plant or food product arriving from other countries meets our strict health and safety standards.
"Today’s measures will further reinforce and modernise our already robust system of official controls, to the benefit of EU citizens, farmers and companies," the commissioner added.
European Commission
Commissioner Varhelyi also outlined that the commission wants to make sure that farmers in Europe "are not faced with international competition that is unfair".
He stressed that imports "should face the exact same rules and requirements our farmers have to face when they are producing food, plants or animals on the EU market".
"In this mandate, we will want to do much more to reinforce these controls.
"First of all, we aim at better alignment of our standards with third countries. At our farmers' request, and supported by a number of member states, we committed to a principle which is not to allow the most hazardous pesticides – which are banned in the EU – back into the EU through imported products," the commissioner added.
He also said the European Commission's "strengthened reciprocity" would guarantee that the EU's "ambitious standards" do not create a competitive disadvantage for its farmers and the agri-food sector.
Export audits
Commissioner Varhelyi also confirmed plans for the commission to "increase its export related audits in non-EU countries by 50% over the next 2 years - starting from January 1, 2026".
"We will step up our monitoring of non-compliant commodities and countries and adapt the frequency of our checks to those accordingly," he pledged.
As part of this move the commission intends to establish a dedicated EU Task Force to make import controls more efficient.
According to Commissioner Varhelyi this will focus in particular "on pesticide residues, food and feed safety and animal welfare" and will consider co-ordinated EU monitoring action on specific imported products.
"For our own food safety framework, these are essential steps to be made.
"They are steps we are ready to make, steps that are going to be taken immediately," he added.
