Starting September 1st, 2019, several EU importers of fruits refuse to buy from Ukraine and other countries which are not EU member states. This is caused by Directive (EU) 2019/523 coming into force, the Ukrainian Horticultural Association has said.
According to a statement on the association’s website, this directive -adopted on March 21, 2019- envisages strengthening the EU’s protection against organisms harmful to plants and concerns the supply of apples, pears, tomatoes, eggplants, pepper and other products. Under the directive, from September 1, 2019, all non-EU countries are required to officially declare that they have no cases of the identification of certain harmful organisms.
“Given that Ukraine is a country free of these harmful organisms, since there have been no cases of their detection, the competent authority of Ukraine (the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumers’ Rights Protection) has already formally proposed to the European Commission to take a decision on the unimpeded import of these goods. However, at present, an official response from the European Commission has not yet arrived, which means that these goods cannot be delivered to the EU,” the Horticultural Association said.
According to the association, Ukrainian producers are independently solving this problem, in particular, exporters of greenhouse tomatoes and peppers are now trying at their own expense to legally import into zones or regions free from these pests in accordance with EU procedures.
