Animal health: Inadequate border controls in Norway

The coordination and cooperation within the competent Norwegian authorities must be improved with regard to controls of catering waste and private consignments of products of animal origin. Furthermore, Norway should ensure that pet animals from Svalbard are imported in line with the requirements in the EEA legislation. This is the conclusion of a report published by the EFTA Surveillance Authority today.

The report, which was published today, points out that:

• pets from Svalbard were allowed into Norway without being placed in quarantine as required by the EEA legislation;
• not all catering waste coming from ships in international traffic were controlled as required;
• only district offices having a border inspection post had control instructions issued by the central level of the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. Three out of four offices were without such instructions;
• not all non-compliant products were seized and destroyed as required by the EEA legislation.

The report is based on an inspection to Norway in May 2011.

Norway has already responded to a draft report sent to Norway shortly after the inspection and set out a table of corrective actions to rectify the shortcomings identified. The corrective actions will be monitored by ESA.

Read the final report here.

For further information, please contact:

Trygve Mellvang-Berg
Press & Information Officer
tel. (+32)(0)2 286 18 66
mob (+32)492 900 187