The European Commission has revealed the progress of potential European Union countries in areas including food safety.
As part of the Enlargement Package, the EU Commission has assessed how prepared Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Turkey are as they work towards EU accession. This article covers the first five countries, a later piece will deal with the other five nations.
Albania has some level of preparation in the area of food safety, veterinary, and phytosanitary policy, but no progress was made over the reporting period.
The National Food Authority (AKU) is refreshing the AKU-net system, a food business operator database, on inspection statistics, data management, and transparency, but work is still needed to reduce the administrative burden for planning and reporting on risk-based official controls.
Albania continued aligning on food additives and identifying maximum levels for certain contaminants in food. No progress was made on developing a roadmap to improve milk quality.
The EU Commission’s recommendations from last year were not implemented and remain valid. These include aligning national legislation with the EU on animal and plant health, official controls, animal welfare, and the General Food Law regulation.
Bosnia Herz and Kosovo
Bosnia and Herzegovina has some level of preparation in food safety, veterinary, and phytosanitary policy, but there has been no progress in the past year.
The system of reference laboratories for food and feed analysis is not set up, and existing labs are not accredited to detect notifiable diseases. Bosnia and Herzegovina has yet to fulfill the criteria for exporting table eggs to the EU or fully implementing its updated Salmonella control plan.
The country has yet to comply with public and animal health requirements, especially related to official controls for exporting beef, sheep, and goat meat to the EU. Further reforms are necessary at all levels of government, particularly concerning inspection services and labs.
The EU Commission’s recommendations from last year were not implemented. They included speeding up preparation for national reference labs in hygiene, veterinary and phytosanitary inspections, and food analysis.
Good progress was made in Kosovo, including finalizing the laboratory information management system and the food control and traceability management system.
The Food and Veterinary Agency’s financial and human resources remain insufficient. Following the transfer of 58 inspectors to the Ministry of Health, the agency should recruit food inspectors, set up an epidemiological unit, and implement the relevant legislation related to the risk-based approach in inspections within Kosovo and on imports.
Kosovo has yet to start work on development of the legal basis for novel food and genetically modified organisms but made some progress in identifying basic cross-compliance measures in food safety, animal health and welfare with the preparation of checklists and guidelines.
Montenegro and North Macedonia
In Montenegro, there was a small reduction in inspection capacities in food safety and veterinary due to retiring staff. However, tenders for employing eight new personnel should help reverse this trend.
According to Montenegrin authorities, 75 establishments have now been upgraded and classified as Category I – i.e., compliant with EU requirements. The number of sites dealing with food of animal origin that are compliant with EU rules is 128.
The national program for improving raw milk quality and handling non-compliant milk was implemented leading to an increase in the percentage of raw milk that meets EU requirements.
North Macedonia has a good level of preparation in food safety and veterinary and phytosanitary policy, plus some progress was made over the reporting period.
A new law on official controls was prepared but is yet to be adopted. The national rapid alert system for food and feed and the Food and Veterinary Agency’s internal audit and training systems continued. The agency continued implementing a program to monitor food safety, but the data needs further analysis.
According to the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), EU member states reported unauthorized chemicals in several shipments of vegetables, indicating that the country’s control of pesticides is inadequate.
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