Commission Decision introducing emergency measures suspending the import from Malaysia of certain live fish.
1. I am writing to advise you that with effect from 15 July 2008, certain imports of live fish from Malaysia will be suspended. This follows a visit by the Commission Services Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) earlier this year, which looked at the controls in place at farm level and the monitoring the certain listed diseases within Malaysia. This followed an earlier visit by the FVO in March 2005, which had identified a number of shortcomings in these control arrangements and made a number of recommendations to the Malaysian authorities, to tighten up these controls.
2. The most recent visit by the FVO found that many of the shortcomings previously identified still existed and the Malaysian authorities had not taken the necessary action as identified in the earlier recommendations, to rectify the problems in the control process.
Therefore, in light of the significant potential risk these identified shortcomings represent in animal disease introduction and to the animal health situation across the Community, the Commission has put forward a proposal to introduce emergency measures that suspend the import of certain live fish from Malaysia.
3. The Commission Decision will introduce requirements suspending the imports into member states territory from Malaysia of the following consignments of fish belonging to the Cyprinidae family, their eggs and gametes:
*Consignments of live fish intended for farming;
*Consignments of live fish, of aquaculture origin intended for restocking of put and take fisheries;
and
*In the case of consignments of ornamnetal fish, only the species Carassius auratus, Ctenopharynoden idellus, Cyprinus carpio, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, Aristichthys nobilis, Carassius carassius and Tinca tinca of the Cyprinidae family.
4. Therefore, any import of live fish as specified above, arriving after 15 July, will be stopped at the Border Inspection Post (BiP) and refused entry into the UK. This will apply to all consignments, whether or not they are accompanied by the appropriate certification as currently required. Consignments will have to be humanly destroyed, and any expenditure incurred during this process shall be met by the consignee or his agent.
