Two out of two occasions. As confirmed by the Spanish Citrus Interprofessional (Intercitrus), South African exporters are still not complying this year – for the most part – with the community regulations regarding cold treatment in their shipments of oranges to the EU. As in 2022, operators in this country resort to a technical and bureaucratic trick to not apply the cold treatment that the European Commission (EC) regulated in June of last year to avoid the contagion of the 'false moth' (T. leucotreta) to European citrus plantations. “The responsibility for implementing community legislation on plant health lies with the Member States and the approved regulation is unambiguous, leaves no room for interpretation and its compliance is easily verifiable. It is obvious that South Africa is finding allies in the EU to not respect what is regulated,” points out the president of Intercitrus, Inmaculada Sanfeliu, in this regard.

The procedure of these exporters is the same as that carried out during almost the entire last campaign: the consignments of South African oranges arrive at European ports with a phytosanitary certificate that on paper certifies compliance with the protocol and somewhere the inspectors They accept it without requesting the temperature records of the three pulp probes, thus allowing their normal access to the European market without further verification. The reality, however, is that the required treatment temperature is not applied to the central part of the fruit - as expressly required by international regulations, ISPM 42, to which the European regulation refers - but rather the 'ambient' temperature, that of the set point of the container (not that of the fruit), so this 'alternative' method does not guarantee the elimination of possible pest larvae inside the oranges. In this sense, the interprofessional remembers that two thirds of South African citrus imported by the EU arrive through a single port, Rotterdam.

Hence, Intercitrus insists that the Commission's DG Sanco – which at this point should know the practice but is not competent when carrying out inspections – to enforce its own standards and to regulate a verification system for this purpose. fast and unequivocal about compliance with cold treatment. Specifically, the interprofessional demands that, before leaving for the European destination, the South African operator specifies what its port of entry will be (in order to warn the inspectors at the destination and schedule the mandatory controls). In addition, it requires that all containers - as established by the aforementioned ISPM-42 - incorporate the three pulp probes that must measure and record the temperature of the central part of the fruit (not the ambient temperature of the container). Thirdly, it proposes creating a virtual platform where the temperature records of these three probes are stored, downloaded, in turn, from the data logger that each container of orange originating from a country with 'Falsa Moth' destined for the EU is. forced to have. Such data – which would undoubtedly prove compliance with cold treatment – should remain available to the competent authorities of the Twenty-seven for at least one year.

Along with this, the interprofessional insists that – given that mandarin and grapefruit host this pest in the same way as oranges – it is regulated to extend cold treatment to these two citrus species.

The Citrus Growers Association (CGA) of South Africa, before starting the current export season, estimated that the cost of implementing the measures required by the EU would be around 75 million dollars and that, given the shortage of prepared containers, it would cause to comply with such treatment and always, as they alleged, a reduction in their orange exports of between 15 and 25%, that is, about 80,000 tons less. The reality is that, according to its own data and until week 37 of this year (until mid-September) the volume of South African oranges sold in the EU (almost 24 million boxes, about 360,000 tons) is 13% higher than that of the same date in 2022 and 8.3% higher than that of that same week in 2021.

The CGA, in fact, already warned then that the South African sector would not be "able to accommodate (as required by the EU, it is understood) the enormous volumes of fruit exported from South Africa to the EU." According to its statistics, the EU is effectively and by far its main market, where in 2022 32% of its exported oranges were sold (long distance from the Middle East, with 21%). Furthermore, on July 27, 2022 and proof of its rejection of the regulation approved by Brussels, the South African Government requested to open a consultation procedure within the Dispute Settlement body of the World Trade Organization (WTO), without so far there has been issued or any precautionary measure has been requested. It is difficult to call – as has been formally argued before the international organization – that the EC measure is “protectionist” when South Africa is obliged to export its citrus fruits or other fruits with an analogous cold treatment (more demanding, in reality) by the phytosanitary authorities of up to 20 countries (including the US, China, Korea, Japan, India and Taiwan) and in no case has South Africa submitted any complaint to the WTO.