• Intercitrus believes that the regulation should affect imports from countries suffering from the pest and should be applied to all citrus fruits that can carry it: oranges, mandarins, and grapefruits.
• In the event of the detection of T. leucotreta in Spanish fields, eradication would be very challenging due to the lack of authorized insecticides.
• The interprofessional organization values positively the efforts that the Government is making to ensure the phytosanitary status of our plantations and, together with France, which currently holds the presidency of the EU, to progress in terms of reciprocity.

In August 2021, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) confirmed in a report commissioned by the European Commission (EC) what the citrus sector had been denouncing: that the ‘systems approach’ implemented by South Africa since 2018 to prevent the entry and spread of the False Codling Moth (Thaumatotibia leucotreta) in Europe is ineffective and violates EU regulations. This is because the set of integrated pest management strategies that the EU allows South Africa to apply in citrus to control the False Codling Moth, as scientifically proven, are far from guaranteeing the absence of the pest as explicitly required by regulations. The EU’s Standing Committee on Plant Health, which includes the Commission and the plant health representatives of the 27 Member States, has been debating the measures to be applied for months. The accumulated rejections this year at European ports, up to November, already total another record number of 29 shipments infected with the False Codling Moth (18 from South Africa, 10 from Zimbabwe, and 1 from Israel). Intercitrus believes that, as this pest is regulated as a quarantine and ‘priority’ pest due to its economic and environmental impact, Brussels’ only remaining alternative is to impose cold treatment in transit for these imports. Cold treatment is internationally standardized, demanded by other citrus-producing powers for Spanish exports, guarantees the elimination of any risk of introduction, and should now be applied without exception to all citrus shipments from countries where this pest is declared and for all fruits in which it has been repeatedly detected and confirmed by science to be carriers, namely oranges, mandarins, and grapefruits, which are considered hosts of the pathogen.

At this point, after spreading throughout Africa and reaching Israel in 1984, nobody disputes the adaptability of Thaumatotibia leucotreta to the Mediterranean climate. As previously indicated, this pest is classified in the ‘top 20’ of plant diseases regulated by the EU as ‘priority’ due to the serious damage it causes. In the case of citrus, it causes premature and massive fruit drop and the appearance of secondary infections caused by fungi and bacteria. It is not an exclusive threat to citrus; it is a highly polyphagous pest, affecting up to 70 host plants, including Mediterranean crops such as peppers, cotton, peaches, nectarines, avocados, pomegranates, as well as forest trees like oak. Moreover, as warned by the Contingency Plan drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture to prevent entry and prepare for the possible detection of this insect, “the risk of establishment in our country is very high,” and it adds that the “main entry route is fruit importation.” Visual checks at entry ports or before, in origin fields, do not provide greater assurance because “T. leucotreta larvae feed internally and most hosts (fruits) present external symptoms that are difficult to identify,” the ministry report states.

It is not surprising, therefore, that this pathogen has often bypassed European border controls, caused an outbreak in 2018 in a German greenhouse, and has been “occasionally detected in Denmark, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.” Once established, this insect, as acknowledged by the ministry itself, would be difficult to eradicate due to the lack of authorized insecticides.

Hence, Intercitrus positively values the efforts being made by the department led by Luis Planas before the Commission and the other Member States to convince them that the only possible option – the one that provides all the guarantees and is viable – is to impose cold treatment on countries affected by this pest during transit to export their citrus to the EU. Similarly, in broader terms, the interprofessional organization wants to applaud the agreements reached with the French government, which currently holds the presidency of the EU, regarding reciprocity in imports, i.e., to ensure that agricultural products from third countries adhere to the same standards as European ones. “Achieving reciprocity in Europe in terms of pesticide use or on labor or environmental production conditions is the only possible way to prevent the ‘Green Deal’, also promoted by Europe, from becoming yet another competitive advantage for foreign productions that do not have to comply with it. Imposing cold treatment – already required for Spanish exports and which South Africa complies with when exporting to the US, China, Australia, etc. – could and should be the first step towards advancing towards that reciprocity that is now being pursued,” concludes the president of Intercitrus, Inmaculada Sanfeliu.