The CJEU (General Court) held in Case T-429/18 BRF SA et al v European Commission this week. I need to think a bit more about the implications of the judgment, particularly as I am keen to submit a research grant somewhere to investigate how, practically speaking, the EU may enforce EU process standards on production taking place abroad.
The GC refers to this challenge at 79 in fine where it says ‘neither the Commission nor the Member States have enforcement powers in respect of establishments outside the European Union or countries not directly subject to obligations imposed by EU law.’ In the case at issue, Regulation 854/2004 provides that the possibility for third country establishments to export products of animal origin (for BRF: poultry) to the EU market requires, first, the country in question and, second, the establishment concerned be included on the lists provided for in those provisions.
The Court held that the Commission is within its rights to establish the reliability threshold of the guarantees provided by the competent authorities of a third country at a particularly high level and may thus go so far as to require, by reference to essential parameters, practically irreproachable performance on the part of the competent authorities of third countries (at 80). As far as its duty to state reasons is concerned, at 84:
The Commission stated, in recitals 4 and 5 of the contested implementing regulation, that the Brazilian authorities had been requested to take the necessary corrective actions to remedy the serious and repeated cases of non-compliance with EU requirements due to the presence of salmonella in poultry meat and poultry meat preparations. It is apparent from the information provided by those authorities and from the results of the official controls carried out at the borders of the European Union, however, that the necessary actions had not been taken, so the placing on the market of the products from the establishments concerned constituted a risk for public health. Those reasons relate to the 10 establishments belonging to the applicants and set out in the second table of the annex to that implementing regulation.
At 88: detailed reasons per establishment, for removal from the list, are not required.
More can be said about the judgment however at this stage I jus want to point out the somewhat messy implications of lack of extraterritorial enforcement powers. It puts foreign establishments at the mercy of their own food and feed inspection authorities. For while EU law requires that some level of tailor-made information be available at individual establishment level, ultimately lack of diligent inspection by the local authorities will ricochet unto individual corporations’ export opportunities.
Geert.
gavc law - geert van calster 