The EU must put up a “joint fight” to combat African swine fever, said Denmark’s Agriculture Minister Esben Lunde Larsen, who addressed the Agriculture Council in Luxembourg on Monday 16 April.
He urged the European Commission to strengthen the strategy for containing and eradicating the disease and for the setting in place of a more far-reaching research programme into the virus.
In the longer term, Denmark requests that the Common Market Organisation (CMO) should be better suited to dealing with outbreaks of animal and plant diseases and that the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should give priority to animal and plant health.
The Swedish, Latvian and Estonian delegations supported these ideas and Greece called for additional financial support for research.
Denmark also considers that African swine fever is “clearly a crossborder problem”. In addition, the country intends, as Poland has already done, to erect a fence at its border (with Germany) to prevent the disease, propagated by wild boars, from spreading. “The aim is simple: African swine fever must be eradicated”, said Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis. The Commission has allocated nearly €50 million to combating this disease since 2013. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)