Brussels, 29/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is to publish a list of 106 Brazilian farms which it considers meet the Community veterinary standards. The decision, taken on 27 February, will end the de facto ban (since 31 January) on imports of beef and veal into the Community from Brazil (see EUROPE 9592 for details).
Brazil has finally agreed to meet the demands of the European Commission, which considers that, currently, no more than 300 Brazilian farms (3% of the total number) meet the Community's health and veterinary standards. On 28 January, Brasilia presented a list of more than 2,600 farms whose meat could be sold in Europe. The Commission rejected the list out of hand.
On 25 February, the Commission decided to send an inspection team to check that the 106 farms it had identified did, indeed, comply with European standards. The list will grow over the coming months as health improvements are made in the Brazilian industry. As Brazilian veterinary services report and prove to the Commission that, after inspection, farms have met European requirements, those farms will be added to the list.
After several inspections carried out in Brazil in 2007 by the EU Food and Veterinary Office, European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou felt that serious guarantees were required on the traceability of the animals for export to the Community.
Brazilian Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes said on 26 February that a “trade conflict” was the cause of the EU's application of rigid health rules to Brazilian beef and veal. Quoted by AFP, Stephanes said that the EU produced 95% of the meat it consumed and that Brazil and other countries accounted for only the remaining 5%. However, Brazilian meat makes up 70% of those 5% and the cost of meat production in Brazil is three times less than the EU's. “The trend for Brazilian meat is upward,” Stephanes said. That was why, he went on, “European producers began a campaign against Brazilian meat”. He said that Brazil would “conform to the standards demanded so as not to close off the European market”. (L.C.)