Updates from a recent call with APHA:
- African Swine Fever – Spain
There is an ongoing outbreak of African Swine Fever in Spain. The situation is fluid with regard to the scale and duration, but the situation has changed; rather than a Spain-wide ban, there is now a regional restriction in place (focused on the Barcelona region), with no new EHCs being issued for porcine-derived products, including Animal By-products, which have not received adequate processing. Updates on the regions impacted will be posted on the link below. Note that the restriction includes EHCs being issued outside of the affected region and outside of Spain, where pork or porcine-derived products have been sourced from the affected Spanish region and then further processed outside of the affected region.
Shipments are being stopped and checked at the BCP (Border Control Points). Affected goods are being stopped from entering the GB. Shipments containing mixed loads are being allowed to be split to allow non-affect goods to continue their journey, but affected.
There has been significant disruption at the BCPs, especially considering the amount of Spanish sourced pork products that are being imported for the sessional holidays.
See EU and EFTA countries approved to export animals and animal products to Great Britain – data.gov.uk which will be updated to show the affected regions and the necessary processing requirements to allow ABPs to continue to be allowed into the UK.
Please let use know regulatory@bivda.org.uk if your shipments are being impacted.
- Ongoing issues with IPAFFS access. The IPFFAS system itself is still functioning; however, users were unable to log in. There was an issue with cloud-based authentication. This has now been resolved, but there was a series of issues with Microsoft/Amazon-based authentication services outside of DEFRA’s control. This should now be resolved but DEFRA cannot guarantee that it won’t happen again.
- UK/EU border SPS (Sanitary/Phytosanitary system) negotiations.
Negotiations are ongoing, but no specific details to share at the moment, and there will be no blow by blow commentary on progress, however the negotiating team would like to know the following (see screen grab below), and how a renegotiated Sanitary/Phytosanitary System could enable easier transfer of goods including Animal By-products across the EU/UK, UK/EU and GB/NI, NI/GB borders. Email your thoughts to EUEngagement@defra.gov.uk and please send copies to BIVDA via regulatory@bivda.org.uk .
