- “Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for inviting the commission to explain our daily work. And at the end, you refer to implementing act in relation to animal disease. I should highlight that since the beginning of the year, we have taken around 100 implementing acts to Regionalise. I mean member states, third country. The Parliament is always asking, how can we best tackle disease? How can we avoid disease to spread? How can we maintain trade for from free region? And for that we need to regionalise and those regionalisation which are recognised also by third countries, are taken for each and every disease, for all the member States which are affected. And as I said at the beginning, we have probably since the beginning of the year, adopted more than 100 implementing acts in view of the regionalisation, and we have done that for all the diseases. It has been very efficient in managing the disease and avoiding disease to go into three parts and allowing. That's the main, the the main goal to allow the rest of the EU and the rest of the farmers in the EU to work efficiently and to be able to, to trade and and breed. So. Next slide. So I want to come back first on the foot and mouth disease situation in the EU. I think I came I came here in in April to explain why what had happened.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “The virus do not appear by accident. The two foot and mouth disease outbreak we had did not appear there by accident. Somebody something bought the virus there. Somebody bought the virus in in Brandenburg, next to Berlin. Somebody or something brought this virus at the border between Hungary and the Czech Republic. So it does not appear by accident. So biosecurity is key then we have to be vigilant and we have to be prepared. And I think that the EU is surely one of the most prepared in the world. We have vaccine available in our vaccine banks for foot and mouth disease, for classical swine fever, for sheep and goat pox, for ruminants, and for LSD, which was used in France and in Italy. And we are not slaughtering, uh, the entire region. We are using vaccination exactly. To avoid outbreaks. When, when, uh, you've seen on the map the region in France and in Italy, those are the regions where vaccination is performed as we speak with EU vaccine, in order to avoid further spread of disease and to avoid exactly what was mentioned to kill the entire herd. So that's, I think, very important.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “So you see that we have we had been prepared you see here the lumpy skin disease outbreak per week in Italy and in France. And again, I don't know if that the question you had about implementing Act is related to lumpy skin disease. You can go to the next slide. But we have really tried to avoid further spread of the of the disease. So we have helped tremendously Italy and France because we had the vaccine, which was available in our bank, so they could start vaccination immediately after the outbreak. And we have tried to define areas which are considered as restricted zone and surveillance zone and so on. Uh, as you can see on the on the map, to try to first avoid the disease, to spread out of the zone, to restrict the movement in that zone, to avoid further outbreak, and to allow the rest of the member states or, respectively, the rest of France or the rest of Italy, to continue to work independently of the outbreaks so movement of cattle can continue. Uh, because we apply this regionalization, regionalization, which is done by an implementing act. And you know, that the implementing act are discussed in the committee, in the Commission and supported. And I think each time they've been unanimously supported by all the member states.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “I think, Madam Chair, that with that I replied to, uh, most of the questions, but I'm happy to, uh, bilaterally if needed, reply to more questions. My PowerPoint can be distributed by the Secretariat to all the members. And I'm always happy to explain again why we do regionalization. We do regionalization to keep the disease in small areas and to allow the rest of the EU to work without restriction. We use vaccine within the affected zone, and it's not allowed to use vaccine outside the affected zone. And to come back to the question of one of Bulgarian MEP, when there are outbreaks of one of the diseases I mentioned, vaccination can be done and we have vaccine in the bank, especially for that purpose. So there is no authorization from Brussels. If I can speak like the common people, there is no need for an authorization from Brussels to start vaccination. If we have a request from a member states to help them by supplying vaccine, we are always happy to do that, because that's not my vaccine, but it's the vaccine of the member states. Thank you.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “I'm repeating that in front of you since eight years. We need a vaccine and we need a vaccine, which is would be an oral vaccine for wild boar to be able to eradicate the disease. Otherwise, it will continue to spread unless it is in a small area like it was in in Belgium or in the Czech Republic. Lumpy skin disease. Next slide lumpy skin disease, which affected the Balkan area, including Greece at the time. Between 2014 and 17, we managed to eradicate it with a coordinated vaccination campaign in the Western Balkans, which was paid by the by the commission. So we coordinated the vaccination campaign. I'm repeating myself, sorry. We are we have coordinated the vaccination campaign and paid for the vaccination campaign in the entire Western Balkan very successfully because the disease was eradicated. Next slide. Unfortunately, again, without understanding how the disease appeared, we had outbreak in France, in Savoie, in Italy, in Sardinia and also in the north of Italy. And now I don't think it's on the slide. We have an outbreak also close to Lyon in France. So here again, the disease appearing from God knows where in the middle of the EU. Very, very peculiar situation. Fortunately, we had vaccine in our vaccine bank. So the Italian authority and the French authority have started the vaccination in Sardinia and in the area around the outbreak in, in France and in, in Italy.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “So we have to to to remain very vigilant and to be prepared for any incursion of disease. And obviously, those two outbreaks in Germany and in Hungary and Slovakia are foot and mouth disease where due to personal Seasonal movement, and I don't want here to speculate more on that African swine fever. You see how in the EU we have been able to avoid really huge spread of the disease like happened in Asia, in Southeast Asia. We have next slide. You see here all the outbreaks since the beginning. So since 2014, uh, several member states were able to eradicate the disease when it was on a small scale. And I refer you to the Czech Republic, Belgium, and a part also in Germany, which managed to regain the status after having dealt properly with the the disease. And next slide. You see these new affected area in in Germany. Uh, good news that the Czech Republic there were no outbreaks in wild boar since one year, so obviously the disease has been eradicated there. Uh, unfortunately, uh, increased number in the Baltic states. So we don't know. We don't quite understand why there has been outbreaks there, probably, uh, fatigue by the farmers to maintain a high level of biosecurity. Next slide. We won't eradicate African swine fever unless we have vaccine.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “We had two unrelated events, one in Germany, in Brandenburg, close to Berlin nearly at the same time as the Grunewald. And then we had another outbreak at the border between Hungary and Slovakia, with 11 outbreaks in total. Two different strains, which have been tackled very efficiently by the German authorities, the Hungarian and the Slovak authorities. The two last one, Hungary and Slovakia, did not deduce suppressive vaccination, so we had a vaccine or antigens to produce vaccine in our bank. Those vaccines were used to allow the farm to take a little bit more time to kill the animals. Uh, I should remind everybody that farms there in that region between Hungary and Slovakia had up to 2000 milking cows. So not small farms, but really huge farms. And we have used successfully they have used successfully suppressive vaccination with with the vaccine. And I should remind you next slide that in the vaccine bank of the European Union. So which is managed by the Commission but belonging to all the member states, we have around 35 million doses of the different strain of foot and mouth disease vaccine. You will be able to keep the slides and distribute the slides. I try to go very quickly. Next slides HpaI avian influenza. And there you see the the epidemic during last season. So during the last winter next slide. Uh the summer you see the green dots.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “The green dots are wild birds which have been affected by avian influenza. And the yellow dots being the the captive birds or small holdings. And then in red big farms which have been affected. Next slide. You see the epidemic here for each winter. And you see that due to the vaccination next slide, which have been performed in France on the ducks and a pilot project in the Netherlands also on laying hands, we have been able to reduce the number of outbreaks. So that has been at least very efficient on the ducks in France, which was really heavily affected in 2021 and 2022. Next slide. We have a lot of work which is ongoing, including guidance document, which you can find on the web, Efsa, European Food Safety Authority, our agency, which is in charge of uh, of scientific advice, has been also has also worked a lot. And we have had an exercise on AP on par with all the member states of the EEA country, Ecdc, Efsa and so on. Next slide. The African swine fever. I want to go through all the different animal diseases which happened in 2025, 25. And I have to admit that it has probably been the worst year since 30 years in the EU with the outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which appeared from God knows where. Not very clear because they relate to viruses which were kept in a lab somewhere and suddenly appearing at the border between Hungary and Slovakia.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “Uh, and we had for lumpy skin or we have in France, I'm sorry, around half a million animals which have already been vaccinated. So which is a huge work by the local authorities. I'm speaking in the name of those regional veterinarians which are working, which are working to perform the vaccination in France and in Italy for lumpy skin, but also for other other diseases. Biosecurity is key. And that leads me also to the problem mentioned at the end. In Ireland, tuberculosis biosecurity is key. Animals or farmers should ensure that they don't bring the disease inside. Inside the herds. What do we do also to make the public aware? And I hope that you have all seen the posters which are supposed to be in all the airports. There should be there since ten years I have seen them in Zaventem. Not a long time ago, which informed the public that you cannot enter the EU with meat, milk, cheese, with plants Plans and what's the the the reason behind it is the fact that those products can contain viruses or bacteria or whatever, and they can be harmful for European livestock. So we have this awareness campaign which is compulsory. The posters I've seen in many airports around, around the EU, and they are there exactly for that purpose, to keep the public aware that, uh, food can contain harmful organisms for European livestock and therefore be being harmful for the farming community in general in the, in the EU.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “So it's still green on the map, but in reality it's not green anymore. The only way for bluetongue to be able to be managed is to vaccinate, to vaccinate according to the strain which is circulating. And last disease is rabies. Rabies. We we have started vaccination in the EU more than 30 years ago very successfully with a different accession we have been able to reach, I don't know, in English to put the disease more in the East if we are paying. We were paying the third country on a distance of 50km. In the third country, we were paying the vaccination in that area so that foxes could not re-enter the EU for obvious reasons. The planes which are distributing the baits to the foxes in Ukraine can not fly anymore. So the distribution of vaccine against rabies for red foxes is not efficient. And therefore that's one of the main reasons why we have again, rabies in in the member states at the border with Ukraine. And we are trying to help as much as we can. Poland and Romania, in that sense, to support them to avoid reintroduction of rabies in in in foxes on the eastern border. I think I've been much, much too long. You gave me eight minutes. Madam chair, I.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “Thank thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean the commission with the support of the Member States, when I say we, I mean the EU and I mean by that, the 27 member States, we are very vigilant to avoid introduction of disease. And that's why we have very strict import conditions, very strict import conditions for live animals. And for me, I mean, I should, I think, remind everybody that we are only allowing meat from around ten countries in the world, fresh meat. So very few countries are allowed to export to the EU. And that leads me to reply to a question linked with Mercosur. But to agreement in general, there are no agreements where we lower our import requirements. Sps is not lowered because there is an agreement between the EU and a third country, Mercosur. What was was mentioned? We are importing meat from Brazil since many years, many years. We we have regionalized Brazil because of foot and mouth disease. The agreement does not lower the import conditions of meat from Brazil, and the control are still done at the external border of the of the of the EU. So we are trying to protect the farmers and the livestock by having strong import conditions. But it's up to the farmer also to ensure biosecurity in his farm, to make sure that if there are viruses around, like avian influenza with wild birds, the poultry farmer does not take the virus from the wild bird into his holding.”
Trade relations with Mercosur · Import of agri-food products in the EU
- “Next slide. And there you see the dramatic situation in Greece, uh, which are the the red line. And you see there the outbreak per week in in Greece. Next slide. Here I mentioned regionalization. Here you have one example which is maybe more evident on the screen. We have several restricted zone in in Greece depending on the spread of the disease. And all those zones are defined in the implementing act. And the rest of the of Greece can continue to work and the farmer can continue to to work. Next slide. We are doing the same for Bulgaria. Next slide. You see Romania. So each and every country is unfortunately in 2025. I repeat it's the worst year since at least 30 years. Each each and every member state nearly had outbreak this year of some diseases. Next slide I come to PPR peste des petits ruminants. Also we had an outbreak in Bulgaria. We had at the beginning of the year also Hungary and Hungary was resolved. Next slide. You see the regionalization which is applied in Bulgaria. And I come to my last disease I think. Next slide. Bluetongue. Bluetongue is a disease transmitted by vector. So it once it's in the population it's very difficult to get rid of it. So vaccination against the specific strain is welcome. And you see that nearly all the countries the member states have been affected. I think even one of the Baltic states had an outbreak at the beginning of last week or beginning of this week.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU
- “We are not trying to have huge zones, but we are on an epidemiological point of view. We define a zone which is the most easy to to control also for the for the territories. And we are, of course, in discussion permanently because we have a meeting of that that committee nearly each week we discussed permanently and we are in daily contact with the Italian and the French authority in that particular case. But we are also in touch with the other, the other member states for the regionalisation for African swine fever, for avian influenza. I mean, all that will be you will find in the, in the the PowerPoint that you have on the screen. Now next slides. So here I'm recapping a little bit, What are the visualization for and what do we use as term which are in the animal health law, protection zone and surveillance zone and the duration? All that is is fixed and is defined and the definition of the zone are in those implementing act. Next slide. Uh sheep and goat pox. Again. Uh again. Next slide. Next slide. Well sheep and goat pox. Dramatic situation in Greece, uh, where we have urged the authorities to start a vaccination campaign. Bulgaria, Romania also with some outbreak here also we had to regionalize, uh, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece to allow the movement of the rest of the EU to take place.”
Animal diseases prevention and management in the EU