Brussels, 11/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Commission adopted a regulation enabling European operators to import more easily and at a lesser cost fruit and vegetables from Hungary. With this decision, it approves the Hungarian system for controlling marketing standards for these products. Thus, fruit and vegetables from the country will be able to be imported without systematic controls on the part of Member States. Hungary is the first country to have received this type of accreditation. Some twenty other countries, both candidates and not, have submitted requests for this type of approval. The Commission stipulates that 80% of imports of fruit and vegetables into the EU are concerned by these requests, and considers that about half the import of fresh fruit and vegetables into the EU could be covered by such measures in the short term..
The decision will take the form of a simplification of administrative arrangements and thus a reduction in the time it takes and costs for fruit and vegetable importers from Hungary. In addition, by making Hungarian operators and control services more responsible, the Commission expects the quality of the products exported by Hungary to the EU to improve. Annual imports of fruit and vegetables from Hungary amount to 85,000 tonnes and represent a market of 60 million euro, or 2% of total imports of fresh fruit and vegetables into the EU. It is mainly a question of peppers (16 million euro), cherries (18 million euro) and plums (9 million euro).