European Union

The European Commission works to ensure the safety of EU food supply and that the same standards of food safety apply to all products regardless of origin, including seafood and other fishery products.

Main food hygiene legislation for fisheries products. Fishery and aquaculture products intended for human consumption and put on the EU market shall comply with EU legislation related to food and feed safety. For imports it is essential that the third country has public health legislation and controls for the fishery sector which are equivalent to the EU legislation. These requirements are checked by the European Commission. Establishments from third countries fulfilling the EU requirements have to obtain the agreement from their competent authorities if they want to export fisheries products to the EU. The list of EU-approved establishments for fish and fishery products is available on this website.

The White Paper on Food Safety and the "hygiene package". The EU integrated approach to food safety, enshrined in the White Paper on Food Safety, aims to assure a high level of food safety, animal health, animal welfare and plant health within the European Union through coherent farm-to-table measures and adequate monitoring.

Importing live animals and animal products: aquaculture. In the field of aquaculture, the relevant legislation governs any placing on the market within each Member State, the intra-community trade and imports into the European Union. Therefore, aquaculture animals and products from both within the EU and from third countries must broadly fulfil similar animal health requirements before they can be moved across national borders.

Legislation on labelling, packaging and additives and on heavy metals (cadmium, lead and mercury) complete the basic framework.