EU citrus imports fall by 7.4% in the first half of 2022

The Spanish citrus season is getting closer and, like every year, the sector is closely monitoring the import of fruit from third countries. In August, the government of South Africa said in a statement that 2,000 containers of South African citrus were blocked at ports in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. They had not withstood the cold treatment that has been in effect in the EU since June 24. In the official statement, the government of South Africa assured that it had reached an agreement with the European Commission that these 2,000 containers would be unblocked once cold treatment was carried out in the European ports where the citrus was held. The first countries to accept the agreement would have been the Netherlands and Italy, according to the statement from the South African government, Spanish MEP Inma Rodríguez-Piñero reported in a question she put to the European Commission regarding this agreement. A recent report from the ...