The European Union has granted the United States an additional five months to comply with new EU requirements for the admission of dairy products from the US.
This week, the European Commission postponed the deadline for new health certificates for American dairy products from August 21 to January 15.
The US dairy sector had strongly objected to stringent and new inspections concerning foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest. One of the requirements is that dairy farms in the US must be inspected for diseases. These and other data regarding the health of the livestock must then be preserved for years. US representatives have called this 'intrusive.'
The US dairy industry feared that the new EU criteria would paralyze trade. The granted extension now provides American and EU officials with enough time to resolve the remaining outstanding details and gives US producers and exporters time to comply with the new certificates.
Technical discussions are still ongoing, but most of the agreement has been reached, says a US industry official. The US has thereby found a way to prevent the collapse of dairy exports to the European Union, according to officials from the US dairy industry.
The US ships about $100 million worth of dairy to the EU annually.