The European Union has decided to extend its ban on food and feed imports from Japan for another three months.
The 27-nation bloc originally imposed import restrictions on food and feed products from Japan's radiation-tainted areas on March 24 concerned over high-level of contamination due to radiation leak from the quake-ruptured Fukushima nuclear power plant.
At a meeting of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (ScoFCAH) on Thursday, Member-States endorsed the European Commission's proposal to extend restrictive measures until March 31, 2012 on the basis of analytical findings that certain feed and food in prefectures close to the Fukushima Daichii nuclear power station continue to contain levels of radioactivity above the maximum levels.
The Japanese authorities monitor intensively the presence of radioactivity in feed and food.
At the same time, taking into account the extensive information received in the past few months, the EU has decided to exclude Nagano from the list of zones with restrictions, whereby the 100 percent testing on radioactivity before export of feed and food from the Japanese prefecture is no longer required. Also, testing of iodine-131 is no longer required given that the half-life of iodine-131 is short and no new releases of the hazardous matter to the environment have been recently reported, and the presence of iodine-131 is no longer observed in feed and food or the environment.
The competent authority of Japan is authorized to appoint - under its supervision - an instance which will sign these declarations.
The European Commission underlined that for a number of reasons, food safety risks from the nuclear accident in Japan are considerably low in the EU. This is confirmed by the controls carried out by Member-States on food and feed at import. Nevertheless, the Commission remains vigilant and has been active in ensuring that food and feed entering the EU from Japan is safe.
The restrictive measures will continue to be reviewed every month, the Commission said.
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