The United States has agreed to the European Union’s new conditions for import certificates for American agricultural and food products to the EU.
The arrangement is also acceptable to the American dairy industry, which feared that their exports would be hindered by the new European criteria for health certificates.
The deadline for implementing the new documents has now been postponed by a few months so that the USDA can adjust the American administration accordingly. The European Commission has shifted the deadline for the new health certificates from August 21 to January 15.
The American dairy sector had objections to mandatory stricter inspections for foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest. One of the European requirements now is that dairy farms in the U.S. must be inspected more frequently for diseases. The data on the health of the American cattle must then be kept for years.
The granted extension now provides American and EU officials enough time to resolve the remaining open details and gives American producers and exporters time to comply with the new certificates.
Technical discussions are still ongoing, but there is now a principle agreement. The U.S. has thereby found a way to prevent the collapse of dairy exports to the European Union, according to officials of the U.S. dairy industry.
The U.S. ships about $100 million worth of dairy to the EU each year.