EU imports over a thousand non-conformities from Turkey and Egypt

Fruits

Vegetables

Published Jan 23, 2023

Tridge summary

Turkey and Egypt are accused of having exported fruit and vegetables to the European Union, especially citrus fruits, with phytosanitary devices not authorized by Community legislation or beyond the permitted limits. The complaint comes from the Spanish Union of Farmers' Unions, whose technical team has highlighted the situation. Specifically, the two North African countries received 1,189 reports in the period between 2020 and 2022 for the importation into Europe of oranges, tangerines, lemons, peppers and grapefruit containing substances that are not permitted or that exceeded the maximum permitted residue limit. As reported by the Spanish newspaper Revista Mercados, fruit and vegetable exports to the European Union from Turkey and Egypt have increased in recent years. The first country exported 30,600 tons and the second 89,000 in 2021. As for Turkey, it has received a total of 1,072 reports in the past three years.

Original content

In 2020 it had 267, the figure rose to 424 in 2021, the rest in the last year also thanks to pressure from European organizations, such as the Union of Trade Unions, in order to increase inspections up to 20% of lemon shipments , oranges and tangerines.A new modification of the Community regulations has entered into force this January, which brings the control percentage to 30% for lemons and grapefruits.For its part, Egypt had 13 alerts in the EU in 2020 and 60 in 2021 for the entry of productions with unauthorized substances or substances exceeding the maximum authorized residue limits. This trend has led the EU to increase controls on oranges and peppers to 20 percent also because, in the case of the former, possible new risks to human health have been identified from the contamination of products with pesticide residues. 'Unions of Farmers' Union is the extension of checks for a whole year. The proposal was sent to the Spanish Agriculture Ministry, Luis Planas, and also to the ...

Source: Italiafruit