The Government of the Region of Murcia has expressed its concern to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, given "the urgent need for the State to streamline the application of mutual recognition of phytosanitary products. The delay in doing so is causing damages to the regional agricultural sector."
The Regional Councilor of Water, Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Environment, Antonio Luengo, said in a letter sent to Minister Luis Planas that "when a member state of the European Union authorizes a phytosanitary product for use in agriculture, any other state should also authorize it within a maximum period of 180 days, as this guarantees equal opportunities and requirements."
"However, Spain takes a long time to carry out this procedure, since the Ministry of Health does not comply with the deadlines set in European legislation," said Luengo. This entails a fatal delay for our producers, who are clearly harmed by a more limited access to phytosanitary products and the greater production losses caused by the presence of harmful organisms. This reduces our competitiveness compared to other Member States."
As an example, he cited the damages to table grape and stone fruit crops, with "phytosanitary products such as azadirachtin, formetanate, paraffin mineral oil or emamectin benzoate which cannot be used, despite having been authorized in other countries, such as Italy." For all these reasons, they request "that the Government of Spain adopts the necessary measures to make the mutual recognition procedure more agile and thus avoid further damage to our sector."
Source: agrodiario.com
