Stricter Risk Assessments under New EU Plant Health Regulation Could Hinder ACP Exports

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/2018, of 18 December 2018 ‘laying down specific rules concerning the procedure to be followed in order to carry out the risk assessment of high risk plants, plant products and other objects within the meaning of Article 42(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 of the European Parliament and of the Council’
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018R2018&from=EN

a) the submission of a reasoned request for the right to export to the EU the high risk products by the National Plant Protection Organisation (NPPO), accompanied by a comprehensive technical dossier;

b) an initial review by the EC, with initial follow up queries for clarification or further information;

c) the provision of any requested additional information by the NPPO;

d) once any additional information has been made available, a review by the EFSA of the technical dossier, with requests for additional information if deemed necessary;

e) the provision of the additional information by the NPPO as requested;

f)  the conduct of a risk assessment by the EFSA

g) a review of the risk assessment by an EU select Committee, including an identification of any remedial measures deemed necessary which must be taken before the issuing of the SPS certificate;

h) the implementation of the remedial measures specified following the review of the risk assessment;

i)  the issuing of the SPS certificate to allow exporters in the requesting country to export the concerned product to the EU market.

There is now less than 9 months before the full entry into force of the EU’s New Plant Health Regulation While bitter gourd exports from Ghana is the only product immediately affected, the range of products where Thrips pest infestations are possible and other products where other ‘priority pest’ infestations occur (e.g. False Coddling Moth) means the new plant health regulation is of concern to a wide range of ACP exporters of horticulture an floriculture products to the EU (for details of issues faced in regard to  False Coddling Moth see companion epamonitoring.net article ‘The Potential Differential Effects of Stricter EU False Coddling Moth Controls on African Exports’, 19 March 2018).

Not all of the NPPOs in ACP countries will have the same capacity to undertake the extensive work required to secure SPS certification for high risk products, should the list of high risk products be extended.

Indeed smaller scale exporters or those newly entering the trade may find their NPPO does not accord a high priority to preparing the comprehensive technical dossier required for making even the initial request to the EC for SPS certification. Equally smaller scale exporters may find they simply lack the resources to put in place up front the necessary pest control infrastructure.

This may well limit export opportunities in high risk plant products to well established and well organised exporters with the financial resources to not only put in place the necessary pest control measures but also the official infrastructure to verify the effectiveness of the control measures in place.

To put this in context recent figures from the South African citrus industry puts the cost of meeting stricter EU controls for the fungal infection citrus black spot – CBS- (which poses no threat to human health and in a context where trade as a vector of transmission is internationally questioned) at fully 9% of industry revenues in 2018 (5, 6) (see companion epamonitoring.net article ‘South Africa to Take EU to WTO Dispute Settlement Over Citrus Black Spot Controls’, 4 April 2019).

For smaller scale ACP exporters the effects of stricter CBS controls have been even more dramatic, with citrus exports to the EU from Belize falling from 1,196 tonnes in 2010 to a mere 1 tonnes in 2014 before recovering to 225 tonnes in 2017, while in Eswatini (Swaziland) export volumes fell from 27,202 tonnes in 2011 to 6,468 in 2014 and 4,388 in 2017.

Against this background the EU Plant Health Regulation controls could see an extensive range of current ACP exports being affected. This would be particularly the case if no advanced notifications were to be provided to ACP exporters of the listing of new high risk products. The sudden introduction of SPS certification requirements for imports of newly classified high risk products would effectively halt the trade in the affected products with the affected countries, until such time as risk assessments have been carried out and SPS certificates issued. This is likely to be a lengthy process.

An additional consideration which needs to be borne in mind is EU producer pressures around the application of EU SPS controls. While currently citrus products are not on the high risk list to which the new procedures will be applied, pressures from EU citrus growers could well intensify. Spanish citrus growers have long called for more rigorous risk assessments of citrus imports and stricter controls on CBS infections. This is despite the internationally contentious nature of their assertion that trade in citrus products constitutes a vector for transmission of citrus black spot. However this does need to be seen in the context of the current difficult financial situation in the Spanish citrus sector (7). These pressures would be likely to increase under a no-deal Brexit scenario, given the disruptions this could cause to current Spanish citrus exports to the UK.

Against this background it should be borne in mind that for infestations such as Thrips the UK currently applies less stringent market entry requirements (in line with current EU procedures) than would be applied from December 2019. The UK’s agricultural department (DEFRA) takes the view that while ‘Thrips palmi is extremely polyphagous…. in the UK, T. palmi is unlikely to survive outside of protected cultivation’.  Current UK controls focus on:

· seeking  assurance from plant suppliers that ‘plants are free from this pest as part of any commercial contract’

· ensuring ‘any known hosts of T. palmi, such as orchids, are treated prior to import’.

· keeping ‘any imported material for ‘growing on’ separate until it has been thoroughly inspected and found to be free from T. palmi and any suspect virus symptoms’.

· monitoring crops during the growing season and erecting sticky traps, which should be regularly checked for the presence of Thrips (2).

DEFRA may well conclude that since it would no longer be under any legal obligation to enforce EU regulations the existing systems for controlling Thrips infestations is sufficient, particularly since Thrips is held to be unable to survive outside of protected cultivation in the UK.

More generally in this context, under a no-deal Brexit scenario it is by no means certain the UK authorities would choose to apply in all areas these more rigorous EU plant health import controls from December 2019, where agro-climatic conditions in the UK made such controls un-necessary.

It is already apparent SPS and food safety issues will be a critical area for negotiations with the US under any UK efforts to secure an FTA with the US.  In this context there may well be political pressure for the UK to abandon some of what are seen as unnecessarily strict EU SPS and food safety controls (8).

These pressures are likely to be intensified by the extreme capacity constraints on the UK’s technical services responsible for SPS issues which would emerge if the UK were no longer part of the EFSA and similar EU technical bodies. Treating the UK as just another 3^rd country for SPS purposes would place a considerable burden on available UK SPS engaged institutional capacities, if exports of UK products requiring SPS certification to the EU are not to be blocked for a lengthy period of time.

What is clear is that given the potential impact of the new EU Plant Health Regulation once it fully enters into force in December 2019, clarifying the UK’s future position on its application of these currently scheduled EU plant health controls could be an important dimension of the current Continuity Agreement negotiations with the UK.

It is certainly an issue which should be highlighted under the proposed “Annex of Concerns” approach (see companion epamonitoring.net articles ‘Is the Final Count Down to Brexit Underway or Will the ACP have Three More Months to Take Action to Mitigate the Trade Disruption Effects of No Deal Brexit?’, 4 March 2019 and ‘Fiji and Papua New Guinea Sign onto Continuity Agreements with the UK’, 18 March 2019).  Initially this would need to focus on ensuring the institutional structures are set in place for discussing and rapidly addressing ACP concerns which arise in relation to changes in UK SPS regulations introduced despite the UK no longer being automatically subject to EU SPS regulations.