Poland’s control system governing the production and placing on the market of beef truly needs to be improved, according to a report by the EU’s Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) published on 20 February.
EU experts note that the situation has improved, but that there is still room for improvement, in particular with regard to: raising awareness of animal welfare issues related to the transport of injured animals, the evaluation and recording of ante-mortem and post-mortem findings to identify animal welfare problems and the emergency on-farm slaughter of injured animals unfit for transport.
With regard to animal identification and registration (use of the central database), “work remains to be done”, the report states.
The audit identified resource-related problems (recruitment of staff, remuneration of veterinarians) “which seriously jeopardise an effective functioning of the control system and thus, the competent authorities’ capability to enforce the correct implementation of the relevant legislation”, write EU veterinarians.
In these circumstances, “consistency and impartiality of the controls are not ensured, while at the same time the required level of supervision by official staff cannot be met”, the experts stress.
Link to the FVO report: https://bit.ly/2HWCFLT (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)