News

Russian pesticide requirements

A memorandum between the Russian Federation and the European Union on compliance and controls of these MRLs has entered into force as of 1 July 2008. Since then, all shipments to Russia have to be accompanied by a Pesticide Usage Statement indicating all pesticide treatments and the date of the last treatment. A template is available here. In case of mulitple infringements, the Russian authorities might request operators from certain countries and for certain products to present an additional document, the safety certificate. A template of that document is available here, as well as a list of accredited labs in the different EU Member States. Safety certificates are needed for produce supplied by the following countries.  As a result of the entry into force of new rules applicable for the custom union between Belarus, Kazachstan and the Russian Federation on 1 July 2010, some previous MRL-changes have been revised. The current MRLs applicable in its 3 Member States are available in an overview compiled by Freshfel. A user-friendly format is available for the most exported EU products.

	Import tolerances and pesticide authorisations
	The European Commission has published a document to outline the changes to the system regarding fixing import tolerances and authorisations of plant protection products in the EU.  This document, primarily for WTO trade parners, is available to download here

Proposals

Under the European Commission's commitment to improve EU citizens' belief in food safety and quality, a comprehensive strategy has been introduced entitled From Farm to Fork. The basis of this strategy was laid down in January 2000 in a Commission White Paper on food safety encompassing all aspects of food safety and quality along the food chain. To achieve the objectives of this strategy, legislation in the food sector is constantly reviewed and revised. Moreover, to address the changing demands of consumers with respect to certain perishable products' quality, marketing standards at the EU, UNECE and Codex levels are occasionally updated. All revisions of legislation concerning the sector can be found below.

Click on the title of the documents below to download the original version of the legislative proposal.