European Union (EU) will not make any concessions regarding the high standards that need to be met for BiH to export milk to the EU market.
BiH must fulfill those conditions in order to export animal products.
This was stated in Sarajevo by Renzo Daviddi, Charge d’Affaires of the EU Delegation to BiH, at a press conference on “Challenges in Export of Milk and Dairy Products from BiH to the EU”.
Noting that measures for export from BiH to CEFTA countries and other countries that are not EU members, Serbia for example, are somewhat milder, Daviddi also said that those same measures will be applied for internal BiH marked as of January 2015.
Compared to criteria BiH needs to meet with export of milk to the EU and to the one for export to CEFTA countries, criteria in its internal market are the lowest and looking from that angle, milk in the stores is of the lowest quality, added Daviddi.
European Union not only warned the competent persons in BiH of the obligation to adjust to the high European standards, but it tried to help the process through funding.
According to Daviddi, it allocated a 19 million euro grant for eight years, of which three million are for technical assistance and food safety, phytosanitary measures and veterinary medicine, then 1.5 million for laboratory equipment, 6 million for animal disease control, 2.5 million for animal movement control (ear tags) and 6 million for border crossing Bijača for phytosanitary inspection.
BiH is currently exporting fish, honey and sugar to the European Union. It is expected that potato will be in group of products that can be exported to the EU market next year, which is demanding according to regulated hygienic and other standards, but whose main aim, according to Daviddi, is protecting health of consumers.
(Source: Vijesti/Fena)
