The European Commission (EC) has responded in writing to a question posed by Clara Aguilera, a member of the European Parliament following a report from the Citrus Management Committee (CGC) on the 'particular' relationships and proceedings between South African Citrus exporters and the official Dutch phytosanitary inspection. In its response, the community executive concurs in contradictions that the CGC - the association that brings together the main private citrus operators in Spain - considers are obvious.
The European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis - who formally endorsed the clarification to the parliamentarian - stated that a European audit was carried out in 2011 "verifying that these inspections (to imports of fruits from third countries) were conducted by independent administrative entities, including the private quality control agency Kwaliteits-Control-Bureau (KCB), as the CGC denounced." The Commissioner said that the KCB was created and is still controlled by the Dutch horticultural operators, even though under EU regulations importers can't carry out such controls because they have particular interests in the market.
The control action of the Vice-President of the Committee on Agriculture of the European Parliament came after the CGC released and presented the MEP a dossier with key documentary evidence to understand how South African citrus fruits reduce possible rejections of the Phytosanitary measure controls imposed by the EU in ports to prevent the entry of quarantine pests and diseases. This dossier made the disparity in the rigor and independence of the inspection between the Netherlands and Spain evident. According to data from the Citrus Growers Association of Southern Africa (CGA) regarding the 2014 import season, the Dutch inspection proved to be 24 times more ineffective in detecting the pathogen Gignardia Citricarpa (the fungus that causes the citrus black spot) than the Spanish inspection.
The Dutch inspection was probably less accurate with its controls because the phytosanitary and quality review wasn't carried out by officials assigned to the Ministry of Agriculture in the Netherlands but by employees of a private concessionaire (KCB), whose administrative board is entirely made up of the importers of Dutch fruit and vegetables as well as the large distribution of the Netherlands (Central Bureau for Food Trade, CBL). Or perhaps, according to the CGA's own communications, controls weren't so efficient because in the summer of that year the authorities and the operators of several countries agreed on the application of creative and flexible protocols and procedures in the phytosanitary inspection of South African citrus.
Referring to the year 2014 is obligatory because it was the last campaign in which South Africa sent significant amounts of citrus through some Spanish ports (since then it has avoided them) and the Dutch are the first channel of access - with much difference - for fruit and vegetables from third countries in general and for citrus in particular.
Following the complaint by the CGC and despite the verification of KCB's procedures in 2011, Brussels now announces that it plans to carry out a new audit of the Netherlands and seven other Member States in the 2017/2018 campaign "to improve the uniformity of these inspections in the Union and to promote the use of good practices."
Given the situation, the CGC asked Brussels to ensure uniformity and independence in the phytosanitary inspection throughout the EU and in line with the rest of the Spanish citrus sector, to heed the resolution adopted by the European Parliament on December 13. In that statement, the Community legislature demanded an increase in the phytosanitary guarantees approved by the EC for citrus from South Africa: to end the parallel circuit with lower requirements when the consignments are allegedly destined to be processed into juice (to avoid the diversion of citrus contaminated with 'black spot') and to apply cold treatment during the crossing to ensure that the fruit is not affected by another dangerous pest, the T. leucotreta, so as to avoid dubious independent controls such as those cited in the Dutch case.