The EU hasn't increased the number of inspections of citrus fruits, despite the high number of interceptions of these fruits coming from Turkey and Egypt with high levels of pesticides, including substances banned in the European Union, in recent years.
On June 6, the MEP Inmaculada Rodriguez-Piñero, formulated a written question to the European Commission in which she stated that, “according to the RASFF system, so far in 2021 the Union has rejected 94 lots of citrus from Turkey and 30 from Egypt because they had excessive levels of phytosanitary products or contained pesticides that have been banned in the Union.”
"Authorities detected high levels of phytosanitary products in lemons and oranges. Worse yet, they found traces of prohibited active substances, such as chlorpyrifos, chlorpyrifos-methyl, or prochloraz in mandarin shipments," Rodriguez-Piñero stated. "Turkey has already been challenged on this matter following a Commission audit in November 2019, which resulted in a 10% increase in the number of lots inspected. The percentage of shipments of mandarins and oranges from Egypt that are subject to random inspection is 5% and 10%, respectively,” she added.
In light of this report from the Commission itself, Rodriguez-Piñero asked if it was considering increasing the minimum inspection threshold for batches of mandarins, oranges, and lemons from Turkey and Egypt. She also asked the Commission if it intended to temporarily halt imports or conduct new audits if levels of banned substances continue to be detected in citrus from Turkey and Egypt. In addition, she wondered if the 10% threshold was enough to curb the use of banned pesticides.
This is not the first time that Rodriguez-Piñero has addressed the European Commission this year about this situation. In February, the Valencian MEP asked the Commission about the alarming data of 2020, when the EU rejected 54 batches of citrus from Turkey (5 times more batches than in 2019) for the same reason. "In January 2021, the RASFF prevented 57 batches of citrus from Turkey from entering the EU. Those were more rejections in one month than in all of 2020.”
Devastating data in May
RASFF health alerts in May reveal devastating and scandalous data. In a single month, a total of 72 shipments from Turkey -especially through Bulgaria- and 12 shipments from Egypt were rejected for containing active substances that are not authorized in the EU, such as chlorpyrifos, methyl chlorpyrifos, or prochloraz, or for exceeding the maximum residue limits (MRL), La Unio stated.
Source: murciaplaza.com
