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DG SANTEDirectorate-General for Health and Food Safety
Conference on the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement: Which impacts on
agriculture, food safety, the
environment and climate?
Panel 2: Agriculture & Food safety
6 December 2019
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Precautionary principle
“Agreements help us export Europe’s high standards for Food
Safety ….”(President Juncker – 2018 State of the Union)
WTO members can also have a higher level of protection if based
on scientific grounds
EU rules are based on solid scientific advice
These high standards reply to the WTO principles:
Measures should be based on the recommendations of the
international standard setting organisations
Risk assessment / Science-based
Transparency ProportionalityNon-
discrimination
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Ensure the level of
sanitary and phytosanitary
protection
Trade facilitation Problem solvingCollaboration between
authorities
Cooperation on • Animal
Welfare• AMR • Food science• Multilateral
fora
Objectives of SPS Chapter
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Agreements in force
(SPS component)Veterinary
Agreements
Mexico
Switzerland
and
Liechtenstein
South Korea
Central
America
Colombia, Peru
Negotiations
concluded
India
Ongoing FTAs
negotiations
Morocco
Mercosur VietnamMalaysia
Singapore Thailand
Japan
Canada
USA
& Ecuador
Ukraine Republic of
Moldova
Georgia
European
Economic Area
EU accession: SAA
Philippines
Indonesia
Tunisia
Australia
New Zealand
Chile
AndorraandFaeroe IslandSan Marino
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ceta/ceta-chapter-by-chapter/https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:JOC_1997_350_R_0007_01http://ec.europa.eu/world/agreements/downloadFile.do?fullText=yes&treatyTransId=561link
to map of
agreement.docxhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32007D0658&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:a2fb2aa6-c85d-4223-9880-403cc5c1daa2.0022.02/DOC_3&format=PDFhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2012:346:FULL&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2012:354:FULL&from=ENhttp://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2018/august/tradoc_157228.pdf#page=135http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ceta/ceta-chapter-by-chapter/http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ceta/ceta-chapter-by-chapter/https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32003D0833&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2012:354:FULL&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:22014A0529(01)&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:22014A0830(01)&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:22014A0830(02)&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:21994A0103(01)&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:21997A0226(02)&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32002D0979&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:21997A0606(01)&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:22001D0216(01)&from=ENhttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:21994D0913(01)&from=EN
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Mercosur SPS Chapter: Objectives
SPS Chapter similar to other Agreements;
Utmost objective: Protection of health
General obligations:
Products imported should meet requirements
of the importing Party (Art. 6.1);
Recognition of EU as a single entity (Art. 6.2)
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Trade facilitation measures
Pre-listing(clear deadlines for
exporting establishments)
Import approval
procedures
Import checks
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Health status & regionalisation
No mutual recognition of respective status
Procedure (with clear deadlines) for import conditions &
import authorisations
EU policy on protected zones included in several provisions
(Art.3, Art. 10, Annex)
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Information exchange
On import conditions & authorisation
procedures (Art. 10)
o incl. list of pests
o deadline to facilitate information
Precautionary principle included (Art. 11)
Notifications (Art. 12) & consultations (Art. 13) in case of
serious/significant risk
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Emergency measures & audits
Emergency measures (serious risk, Art.14 ) adopted
without prior notification but notified to the Party in
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Dialogue Chapter
Cooperation on Animal Welfare &combatting Antimicrobial
Resistance
Cooperation on Agricultural biotechnology
Scientific matters related to food safety, animal & plant
health
Two Sub-Committees to manage the Chapters.
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Region to Region
• Huge territory (3,3X the EU territoty)
• Not the same integration as EU
• Commertial patterns: EU products are directlyexported to
individual MERCOSUR countries
Pragmatic approach:
• Single questionnaires
• Harmonized certificates and list of EU establishments valid
for the four MCS countries
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Conclusions All negotiation objectives have been achieved
including
addressed additional requests (e.g. Cooperation to fighting
AMR, cooperation in multilateral fora and food science,
reciprocity)
Health protection is the front line & Chapter’s first
objective
SPS Chapter in line with EU system & EU procedures
SPS & Dialogue Chapters: balanced & comprehensive
Real & major benefits to the EU & Mercosur
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Thank you
