In the absence of a mutual Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) agreement, the British Poultry Council (BPC) has once again urged government to consider reciprocating controls on imported poultry meat from EU.
BPC said that the government’s refusal to acknowledge “unbalanced trade requirements” is increasing production costs and risking further loss of trade for the poultry meat sector with the EU.
In 2021 the sector lost around £85 million in the value of chicken meat exports to the EU compared to 2020. BPC said that continuing regulatory barriers to fair and competitive trade with the UK’s largest trading partner will only exacerbate the problem.
The Council argued that current EU laws on Avian Influenza Control Zones dictates that meat from birds having ‘passed through’ a control zone in secure, moving vehicles cannot then be exported to the EU. This means that British producers can end up trapped in restrictions that compromises their ability to keep food trade moving. These controls are not reciprocated by the UK government on imports from the EU, so British producers face a commercial disadvantage.
A lack of political will
BPC chief executive Richard Griffiths said: “These specific controls faced by UK producers do not decrease the risk of spread of bird flu, or else the EU would apply them internally.”
He continued: “This is a case of a lack of political will from both the UK and EU to admit there is a problem. We face restrictions and EU producers do not, and the impact on British poultry producers is unfair. It is that simple. We have reached out to both parties to urge action, but politicians on both sides are ignoring the problem.”
Griffiths went onto say that government will not find a solution to the issue “with its head buried in the sand, continually refusing to fix SPS barriers.
“The UK government must engage with the commercial impact of third country trade, such as the avian influenza restrictions. It should be a simple matter to roll-over previous controls until a full SPS agreement can be delivered. Failing that the UK should apply the same restrictions to poultry meat entering the UK from the EU as part of the border checks implementation on 1st July 2022.”
He added: “The reality is that this is an issue beyond our control, yet our businesses are the ones suffering the consequences of the UK government and EU Commission’s inability to come to a sensible agreement. We cannot solve the problem, and those who can, won’t.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
