Agriculture committee  I'm sorry. I cannot speak about that. It's not really an SPS thing. It's indeed also on the AGRI committee. We are working on it at a high level on the EU side, so I think I'm not allowed to say anything about it at this point.

Agriculture committee  It was an honour. Have a good meeting. Thank you.

Agriculture committee  I was not aware that you've already had costs and a decrease in trade of 50%. Is that what you were saying? I think the measure is still quite new, so I'm really surprised.

Agriculture committee  Your authorities and the representatives of Canadian industries have done an excellent job. I mean, they immediately flagged our attention and their concerns. I think that in the EU we are working on this. In principle, we indeed have one set of import rules, but under certain ci

Agriculture committee  No. I think Canada has asked to have this tabled at the AGRI committee meeting, which is going to take place in April.

Agriculture committee  It's not—

Agriculture committee  No. We call that a pre-clearance, and the CETA is saying that we should not apply pre-clearance between our two parties, so we don't do that. We don't inspect consignments at the exporting territory to see whether they can maybe trade it to the EU. What we do is audits. We send i

Agriculture committee  That happens in the EU as well. Inspectors may enter farms—pig farms, poultry farms, broilers—to see whether the welfare requirements are indeed being met. Yes, this happens in the EU too. Our authorities ought to do so. They are expected to take care of these controls. Animal w

Agriculture committee  The carcass wash is another thing that may also be authorized in the same way as a GMO: after a risk assessment by EFSA and then a legislative procedure by the commission and the member states. At this point, there are two carcass washes allowed—authorized—with lactic acid for ce

Agriculture committee  —but indeed, meat from Canada imported to the EU has to be produced in accordance with our requirements also in this area.

Agriculture committee  This is a very short answer. As soon as you produce for the EU market, only those washes are allowed that are allowed in the EU.

Agriculture committee  Do you mean the animal welfare inspections?

Agriculture committee  There are inspections at several places. They are done in slaughterhouses, obviously. Also, during transport, trucks may be stopped by authorities and the contents may be checked as to whether the animals have enough possibilities to rest, enough access to water, and don't make j

Agriculture committee  I'm sorry to say this, but this is not an SPS measure. I know that these geographical indicators are very important on the EU side, but I think the two of us are not.... I don't work in this area so I cannot say anything about it. Hans, I don't know whether you can respond.

Agriculture committee  In the commission, there is a unit dedicated to investigating possible frauds and to act accordingly. What is extremely important in the case of food fraud is direct communication: directly informing each other in case there might be something wrong and some fraudulent actions mi