For a range of plants and plant products, Member States must carry out import inspections before the consignments are allowed into the EU. This is to verify that such consignments are free from pests and diseases that can be harmful to crops or plants in the environment of the EU. When problems are found, Member States must immediately notify the rest of the EU and the exporting country. This is done through the rapid alert system EUROPHYT operated by the Food and Veterinary Office. The report of the notifications made in 2013 has been published. It reveals that 7 000 consignments mainly imported from non-EU countries were intercepted in 2013. In about one third of the cases insects, fungi, bacteria or viruses were found; the number of interceptions with such harmful organisms increased by 18%, compared to 2012. Fruit and vegetables fall amongst the highest category of consignments that were prevented from entering the EU marketplace. These included mainly mangoes, gourds, basil, aubergines, guavas and peppers, coming from India, Pakistan, Ghana, Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Bangladesh. As a result of specific EU safeguard measures, the number of interceptions from Thailand, Vietnam and Israel decreased significantly in 2013. There were over 2 000 interceptions of wood packaging material, originating mainly from Russia, China, USA, Belarus and India. For more information on EUROPHYT including access to the annual and monthly reports:
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A very serious bacteria, Xyllella fastidiosa was discovered in an area in southern Italy in 2013. It occurs on several plant species, however, for the particular strain found in Italy, the most severe effect has been on olive trees, of which thousands have wilted and died because of the infection. The bacteria is not known to occur anywhere else in the EU. Host plants imported into the EU must be free from the organism and if it is found Member States must eradicate it. Because of the scale of the outbreak in Italy, there have been concerns of possible spread to other parts of Italy and the EU and EU emergency measures were issued to prevent such spread and to support Italy in applying the necessary control measures. The Food and Veterinary Office carried out an audit of the Italian control measures and gave recommendations for improving the controls. This report has just been published. The Commission continues to monitor the situation and follow-up audits are planned. The report of the first audit to Italy on this topic is available:
Significant failures in the traceability of meat have come to light in recent years. While most such failures are the result of deliberate acts on the part of meat traders and/or processors, the lack of a fully effective official control system focusing on traceability in Member States has probably been an important contributory factor. In addition, previous FVO audits have identified non-compliances in several Member States in relation to enforcement of FBOs compliance with their responsibilities regarding traceability and deficiencies in official controls of traceability and enforcement of labelling requirements. Therefore, the FVO has started a specific project “Post Slaughter Traceability†with audits in Member States, in order to evaluate official controls over traceability of meat as a commodity, in particular the ability of authorities to conduct qualitative and quantitative audits of Food business operators' systems and the enforcement of obligations to evaluate the implementation of, and control over the labelling and identification systems of meat and products thereof. A summary of these findings will also be discussed with all Member States to improve the capability of CA systems to oversee traceability and, thereby, to improve the quality of controls and to deter / detect irregularities.
EUROPHYT is the EU notification and rapid alert system for plant health interceptions. It is used by EU Member States and Switzerland and managed by the European Commission. EUROPHYT is the EU notification and rapid alert system for plant health interceptions. It is used by EU Member States and Switzerland and managed by the European Commission. The recent publication of its 2012 Annual Report provides key statistics on interceptions of consignments of plants and plant products imported into the EU or being traded within the EU itself. In addition, the report analyses the interception trends, based on annual figures for the period 2008 to 2012. There were over 7,000 notifications of consignments intercepted by Member States and Switzerland, during 2012. The reasons for the interception of these consignments can be broken down into three main areas; the presence of harmful organisms, wood packaging material not complying with international phytosanitary requirements (ISPM 15), or documentary problems, which included the lack of or inappropriate phytosanitary certificates.