APHIS Proposes to Allow Apple and Pear Imports From EU Without Preclearance
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing to allow imports of fresh apples and pears from Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands without going through an ongoing preclearance program, it said (here). The fruit would have to be produced under a systems approach consisting of production site and packinghouse registration, inspection of registered production sites, postharvest safeguards, fruit culling, traceback, sampling, cold treatment against Mediterranean fruit fly in countries where the pest is known to occur, a phytosanitary certificate, port of entry inspection, and importation as commercial consignments only, said APHIS.
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The proposed rule would not affect requirements for importation of apples and pears under the preclearance program. The preclearance program allows importation of fresh apples from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, and fresh pears from Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, subject to certain conditions, including documentation to validate foreign site preclearance inspection after the required treatment is completed.
The alternative to the preclearance program was requested by the European Commission, said APHIS. The EU commissioners for trade, food safety and agriculture applauded the APHIS proposed rule as “a welcome reflection of the increased level of engagement by the Commission with the U.S. administration,” in a statement issued Jan. 16 (here). “Following this initiative, we are looking forward to the rapid completion of the remaining legal and administrative steps in order to deliver further tangible benefits for the EU fruit producers. Opening the market for the 2016 harvest i.e. by September 2016 could be feasible, if all parties continue their efforts," it said.