Major threat to €100m beef export trade with Russia averted after talks
Uniform food safety veterinary certificates rather than individual documents to cover all meat imports from the EU, worth €1.3 billion a year to European producers, are to be introduced.
The decision, which will allow EU exports to Russia of live animals and animal products to continue from October 1 without disruption, was welcomed yesterday by Meat Industry Ireland (MII) and the Irish Farmers Association (IFA). MII spokesman Cormac Healy said the loss or even disruption to trade with the Russian market would have been a catastrophe for the beef sector.
Russia remains the only international market for Irish beef outside the EU. But prices there have fallen by as much as $400 per tonne due to increased volumes of South American beef entering the market.
Mr Healy cautioned that the fall in the Russian market price, coupled with the weakening returns for steak cuts in the EU market, have reduced the overall value of the carcase in recent weeks.
IFA livestock chairman John Bryan said the announcement was an important breakthrough for the beef sector. Ireland exported about 80,000 tonnes of beef to Russia last year. Russia, which blocked all meat exports on June 1 but later lifted this ban until October 1 to allow discussions to take place, will now implement a set of uniform veterinary certificates.
These will be annually reviewed taking into account the development of the animal disease situation in the EU and new scientific data. In addition, Russia has accepted the principle of “regionalisation,” so that an animal disease outbreak in a part of a member state will not block exports from the whole of that country nor from the rest of the EU.
EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne said the way is now clear for uninterrupted trade in legitimate and safe food products from the EU to Russia.
