Brussels, 16/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 16 March, the Court of Auditors published recommendations to improve the system of veterinary checks for meat imports.
The Court's audit of the Commission's supervision of the EU system of veterinary checks carried out at border inspection posts concluded that implementation of the 2004 “hygiene package” is behind schedule, with several important regulatory chapters still to be implemented. The Court also found that substantial reductions in the levels of import controls were established in some “Equivalence Agreements” established with third countries. Such reductions, it said, “were not supported by reasonable evidence”.
The TRACES (Trade Control and Expert System) and RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Feed and Food) information systems, on which veterinary checks on meat imports rely, “are widely and usefully employed across the EU”. However, certain border inspection posts in three member states (Germany, the Netherlands and Spain) still do not enter all the relevant TRACES data. This particularly affects the completeness and reliability of the data captured and the information systems as a whole, the Court notes.
Court auditors carried out visits in four member states - France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Romania. They also took part in inspection visits in three other member states - Lithuania, the United Kingdom, and Greece.
François Osete of the Court of Auditors said that “overall, the system works. There is nothing dramatic”.
For the four main categories of animal, meat imports represent overall 3.6% of EU consumption. The total value of these various categories of meat (sheep/goats, cattle meat, poultry and pig meat) was €3.37 billion in 2009. (L.C./transl.rt)