At the headquarters of the National Agri-Food Health and Quality Service (Senasa), representatives of the National Plant Protection Directorate held on July 14, a virtual meeting with officials of the Plant Protection Unit of the General Directorate of Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) of the European Commission and the Argentine Embassy to the European Union (ECEUR), including the Department of Agriculture.
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During the meeting, progress was made in organizing a visit by Argentine experts from Senasa to the EU in order to focus on cooperation between both parties and address interceptions due to the presence of black spot in citrus exports from Argentina to that destination.
In this context, Senasa expressed its expectations regarding the technical visit to the EU, to be able to observe and exchange information on border control procedures and the analytical and diagnostic methods carried out by the EU .
There are three ports of interest for Senasa: Cartagena in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Likewise, interest was expressed in visiting and holding meetings with the experts from the laboratories of these countries linked to the analyzes and diagnostic reports.
To close the visit, Argentina proposed a meeting in Brussels to share the results of the tour together with the inspectors from DG SANTE.
For Senasa there werer the National Director of Plant Protection, Diego Quiroga; Director of Vegetable Certification, MartÃn Delucis; the head of the Citrus Export Program, Paula Mendy; and Ezequiel Ferro, from the National Plant Protection Directorate; along with officials from the ECEUR and the Agricultural Department.
In this meeting, topics such as the summary of the 2022 export campaign, the status of the current campaign and the results of the audit carried out between February and March 2023 were also discussed.
In this sense, the Senasa representatives reported that they received the audit report by the EU, which was carried out from February 24 to March 10 of this year and which is working on the requested recommendations to then send the responses during the next week.
During this audit, the DG SANTE delegation at the closing meeting stated that Argentina has implemented a robust Export Program in line with the EU regulatory requirements.
Likewise, he highlighted the permanent adaptations in the different control points to minimize the risk of detections of quarantine pests at destination. ■