Spain: dropping of import restrictions on Argentinean citrus opposed

Tholen - The Spanish agricultural organisation Ava-Asaja from Valencia has uttered tough critics towards the Spanish government, as she would not have fulfilled its obligations, as the permanent European phytosanitary committee has dropped the extraordinary phytosanitary restrictions which were imposed on the imports of Argentinean citrus.

The president of Ava-Asaja, Cristóbal Aguado is completely opposed to the decision and argues that black spot and citrus cancer might be introduced, as the actual detections of quarantine diseases and plagues in Valencia occur much more often then the official observations of the Ministry of Agriculture and even more often in the ports of Northern Europe.

According to Aguado the Spanish government is fast with dropping the European restrictions, while it doesn’t succeed in obtaining compensations in the area of exports, thus referring to the problems with phytosanitary protocols with the US, Korea, China, etc.

Publication date: March 29 2007
Author: André van der Wiel
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