Europe on alert against plague in South Africa spreading to EU

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) warned that European Union (EU) citrus growers cannot relax control of citrus imports from South Africa, given the spread of the Thaumatotibia Leucotreta pest.

″If we have these pests, our farmers will not be able to fight or defend themselves,″ warned Spanish MEP Clara Aguilera during a meeting of the European Parliament's agriculture committee covered by AgroPages.

According to Aguilera, Europeans will lose their crops because ″we cannot implement and enforce the mandatory regulation.″ She reiterated that Spain is the world's largest exporter of citrus, followed by South Africa.

In July, the EU announced measures such as extreme cold treatment for oranges with temperatures at or below two degrees Celsius for 25 days and additional phytosanitary declarations for grapefruit and other citrus fruits.

South Africa responded to the measures at the time by complaining to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In August, the country and the EU reached an agreement for shipments to be temporarily handled at the EU bloc's cold treatment facilities.

However, Spanish MEP Aguilera believed that South Africa was allowed to ″do whatever they wanted,″ questioning the efforts of the European Commission.

″[The Commission] said that there were requirements that we had to fulfill. That was not the problem. The problem was that there was no compliance,″ she countered and argued that the measures taken so far were insufficient. In her view, they should have returned the containers to South Africa.

The European Commission has defended itself from the criticism, saying that it takes ″seriously″ plant and animal health and is ″taking steps to protect the farming community″.

A representative of the General Directorate for Health and Food Safety (SANTE) said the European Commission is not afraid ″to take strong measures to protect agriculture.″.

Although some imports did not follow the new measures, which were carried out at a later stage at airports before being transported, the Commission representative stressed that this was a temporary solution and that South Africa could not count on its continuance from now on.

(Editing by Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages)