Processors Press for Resolution of Unresolved Technical Issues on CETA

The Canadian Meat Council is hopeful a key technical barrier blocking the export of Canadian pork into Europe can be resolved prior to the implementation of Canada’s new free trade agreement with the European Union

by Bruce Cochrane – FarmScape Online

September 21 has been set as the implementation date for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement involving Canada and the European Union.

Ron Davidson, the Director of International Trade, Government and Media Relations with Canadian Meat Council, told FarmScape Online that the two key technical barriers, health mark labelling and antimicrobial intervention, will delay commercially viable access to Europe for Canadian beef and pork.

“The first one pertains to where the health mark is placed on packages of meat that are going to Europe,” Davidson said during his FarmScape Online Interview. “This is of concern because when we have an animal, only pieces of it will go to Europe, while other parts of the animal go elsewhere.”

“The antimicrobial intervention issue is unlikely to be resolved by the September 21 implementation date”

 

“If we are putting the health mark on the boxes at the production plant before they go into cold storage, this causes a problem for our companies because the product that is not going to Europe is going to have this health mark on it so we wish to be able to place the health mark on immediately before the product goes to Europe,” he said. “That one, we think should be resolvable and we are quite surprised it hasn’t already been resolved.”

According to Davidson the antimicrobial interventions are of particular concern to the bovine sector, the beef producers, and to some pork producers.

“That is because the European Union has not approved all of the antimicrobial interventions that we have in Canada and they will not permit the importation of meat products using those interventions until we have achieved European approval.”

Davidson says the antimicrobial intervention issue is unlikely to be resolved by the September 21 implementation date which means beef producers won’t be able to take advantage of commercially viable access to the EU for quite some time.