WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/W/190 
30 May 2006 
 (06-2573) 
Committee on Sanitary a nd Phytosanitary Measures Original:   English 
  
 
COMMENTS ON THE BACKGROUND DOCUMENT ON ISSUES IN 
THE APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 6 OF THE SPS AGREEMENT 
(G/SPS/GEN/640) 
 
Communication from the European Communities
 
 
  The following communication, received on 16 May 2006, is being circulated at the request of 
the delegation of the European Communities.  
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Preamble  
 
1. The European Communities wishes to thank th e WTO Secretariat for the document which 
provides a very good overview of the state of pl ay of the SPS Committee’s discussions on Article 6 of 
the SPS Agreement (hereafter "regionalization"). 
2. As requested by the SPS Committee Chairman at the March SPS Committee meeting, the 
European Communities hereby provides preliminary comments to G/SPS/GEN/640.  At this moment 
further discussions on this topic are taking place in the relevant IPPC and OIE committees in May and 
it is therefore difficult to forecast the outcome of these discussions.  Certainly these discussions will 
have a repercussion on the current work within the SPS Committee.  As work is proceeding at 
technical level, the SPS Committee should take these conclusions into account at its June meeting and 
some of the EC comments therefore may not be relevant at that stage.   
3. Although the International Standard Setting B odies (ISSBs) have recently begun to give 
elaborated consideration to the issue of regiona lization from a specific technical perspective, the 
European Communities shares the opinion of sev eral other WTO Members that the SPS Committee 
itself is best placed to address and provide administ rative guidance on how to a pply the provisions of 
Article 6 of the SPS Agreement.   
4. From the available technical guidance provided by  the ISSBs so far one can deduce what such 
an administrative process should look like.  It is  a matter of applying the existing procedures and 
transposing them to situations where guidan ce has not yet been established.  Above all, 
regionalization is an exercise between two trading partners and hence it should be adapted to the 
particular situation in which trade of a specific pr oduct is to take place.  As the animal disease and 
pest status may vary over time, it is important to bear in mind that general guidance as to be provided 
by the SPS Committee should be general and flexible, but with the clear intention to facilitate trade 
between two partners, as well as to enhance transp arency on the procedure to be followed.   G/SPS/W/190 
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  The problems  
 
Establishment of pest- or disease-free areas (o r areas of low pest or disease prevalence)  
 
5. This is mainly a national/internal issue.  It is  up to the national/local authorities to put in place 
measures in order to either re-establish the previo us pest- or disease-free situation, or either to 
establish such status within an endemically infected area.  The concept for both is the same.  In this 
case the technical guidelines from the ISSBs are very helpful as they can assist in providing an outline 
of what steps need to be fulfilled to obtain pest- or disease-free status for each specific pest or disease, 
if necessary.  In the phytosanitary area, two dis tinct standards exist: ISPM 4 for pest-free areas and 
ISPM 22 for areas of low pest prevalence.   
Recognition of pest- or diseas e-free status (see Figure 1) 
 
6. The establishment by the national authority of pest- or disease-free status (or of low pest 
prevalence) however is the initial step and only part  of the requirements for final recognition by the 
importing party.  Multiple other factors also play a role in this process, e.g. reliability of the 
competent authorities;  veterinary/phytosanitary stru ctures in place to maintain the status, including 
monitoring and verification.  An example of such requirements has been provided in a previous EC 
submission on the subject (annexed to G/SPS/GEN/588)  and is also addressed under Section B of the 
G/SPS/GEN/640.  It is often because these other factors are not fulfilled, or sufficient proof cannot be 
provided of their implementation, that recognition by  the importing party cannot be granted.  Here the 
ISSBs can play a role as they can officially declare a disease- or pest-free status.  Although this may 
be very limited and cannot be exte nded to cover all cases, where it is available it can provide extra 
guarantees that facilitate the work of potential importing parties.  In the plant health area, however, we 
are far from an international recognition by an offi cial international body such as IPPC.  Moreover, 
the ISSBs can only consider the initial step outlined in the previous paragraph without sufficiently 
taking into account the other factors highlighted.  Therefore, the ultimate decision to recognize 
remains with the importing Member and very much de pends on the trust in the competent authority of 
the exporting Member.  This trust builds on the ve terinary/phytosanitary system in place and previous 
experience with the exporting Member.  Conseque ntly, the recognition process varies from one case 
to another, hence the need for pr edictability and transparency.    G/SPS/W/190 
 Page 3 
 
 
  
TRADE PERSPECTIVE
Recognition of pest/disease free status
OfficialISSB by Importing Member
Guidance
OIE
(4 diseases)IPPC
(3 ISPM’s)e.g. For other
animal diseasesAdministrative 
procedures
(to be established
by SPS Committee)Verification
(may not
necessarily
include
inspection on 
site)Input from ISSB Own AssessmentExporter - Importer
Fig.1
 
 
Predictability   
7. Following from what precedes, there is a need for an exporting party to know where it stands 
in the recognition process and whether it is worthwhile  to make these costly efforts.  This level of 
predictability means that there is some general indicati on of what is to be expected in terms of time.  
Such indication needs to remain flexible and cannot  be binding as several factors may interfere, hence 
the difficulty in fixing timelines.  However it shoul d be possible to indicate timelines roughly between 
the importing and exporting party at the initial phase of the recogniti on process, which go further than 
just outlining the process itself.  Maintaining a go od level of information ex change among all parties 
involved will automatically increase the level of tran sparency.  Several factors are outlined as possible 
causes for unpredictability in G/SPS/GEN/640, but cl ear communication between the parties should 
be able to overcome these.   
8. For an exporter, it is evident that regaining recognition of its pest- or disease-free status 
cannot happen soon enough, both to safeguard the intern al health situation and to resume exports.  As 
an importer, the situation differs as one wants to en sure that any  imports cannot harm the internal 
disease/pest status.  Normally the process will ta ke longer than the exporter would like, as the 
importer would like to verify things thoroughly.   
9. The European Communities is in favour of establishing timeframes for the purpose of the 
parties committing themselves to provide feedback w ithin a certain timeframe.  The commitment is 
hence on the timeframe, and not on the positive answer to the recognition of regionalization in itself.  
The European Communities is convin ced that in this way a better le vel of predictability, and hence 
transparency, is achieved.   
10. The European Communities is not in favour of  establishing strict timeframes, which it 
considers not feasible in practice, but "a reasonabl e timeframe", the terminology used in OIE, should 
be applied.  This would imply that the period to apply regionalization must be quicker than regaining 
free status of the region or country under the OIE guidelines for the particular disease in question, 
unless an explicit question is raised.  If time frames go beyond the ones provided for in the G/SPS/W/190 
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  international standards, there is no reason to do the regionalization exercise as there is no gain, 
assuming, of course, that the ISSBs timeframes are respected in the first place, which is not always the case!  Another important guidance could be th e timeframes normally app lied within the exporting 
country to declare an area free again.  The overall id ea, however, should be to gain time vis-à-vis the 
officially established OIE timeframes.  OIE is en couraged to continue to work on establishing 
technical guidance on other diseases and, as far as possible, facilitate official recognition for 
additional diseases than the four di seases for which an official OIE rec ognition is granted at present.   
Transparency 
 
11. There is need for transparency  at several levels because this leads to a higher level of 
predictability.  An exporting Member needs to be tr ansparent about the system that it has in place in 
order to improve trust with the importing Member.  On the other hand, the importer must also be 
transparent on its requirements for recognition.  Through dialogue, all pro cedures and requirements 
need to be clarified at a very early stage in the importer-exporter relationship.  If this is not the case, 
then the potential exporter cannot know whether it is  worth making the investment to establish free 
zones in an endemic area, or whether it is wort h continuing the discussion on potential trade from a 
free area.  A typical example of non-transparency is the ever-lasting repetition of sending new 
questionnaires, without any guarantee on if and when  this will be followed by the next step.   
12. Whether this information should be shared with  the SPS Committee is a different issue, and 
may not necessarily lead to higher transparency, unless th ere is lack of it, but this is already dealt with 
under the agenda item of "specific trade concerns".   
13. The European Communities puts up-to-date information on its website concerning the 
disease-status of its member States.  In addition, th e chronology of facts during an epizootic is also 
available on the website, e.g. see avian influenza.   
14. In the case of trade, full transp arency is established with the exporting party and this party 
knows at all times at which step in the recognition process it stands.   
15. The European Communities is in favour of issui ng an additional notification of recognition of 
regionalization through the SPS notification authority,  recognizing, however, that this would add to 
the already heavy burden of overload of notifica tions.  As the SPS Committee will have established 
administrative guidelines, it will be clear to any ot her party which modus operandi has been applied 
and there may be no need to outline this in detail.   On the other hand, another possibility to enhance 
transparency is a short statement during the SPS Committee meetings.  The lack of recognition of 
regionalization has already often been the subject of a specific trade concern.   
SPS Committee versus ISSBs 
 
16. As a matter of transparency and to enhan ce streamlining of procedures, the European 
Communities supports the view that the SPS Comm ittee should draw up administrative guidelines 
outlining the different steps in a regionalization r ecognition process.  The technical guidelines relating 
to each individual disease/pest should be dealt with in the respective sister organizations.   
17. As follows from Figure 1, recognition by th e OIE as having achieved free status in a 
particular disease does not necessarily enhance the ability of WTO Members to gain bilateral 
recognition.  It is one of the components that may faci litate the bilateral recognition.  It is also only at 
this stage of bilateral recognition that the SPS Co mmittee should interfere and agree on administrative 
guidelines (see shaded area in Figure 1).    G/SPS/W/190 
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  18. The OIE provides recommended steps for zoning  and the determination of recognition (or 
not) should be notified within a reasonable period of time.   
19. In the IPPC, however, three standards already exis t that address regionalization.  In addition, 
a draft standard "guidelines for the recognition of  the establishment of pest-free areas and areas of low 
pest prevalence" is currently being discussed.  In th is procedure an outline of the different steps is 
provided but there is no mention of specified time lines other than the phrase "the contracting parties 
should proceed with the recognition process without undue delay".  For the IPPC it is not yet clear 
whether the international recognition of pest-free ar eas is a feasible and sustainable system, legally, 
technically and economically.  In the absence of su ch certainty, however, regionalization should still 
be applied and one cannot wait until su ch international recognition is av ailable in order to trade.   
20. In the absence of full clarity and recognition by  the ISSBs so far, it is up to the SPS 
Committee to establish such administrative guidelines in order to facilitate trade.  Wherever such 
international recognition exists, it should be taken into account as one of the factors that may enhance 
trust in the competent authorities and hence facilitate recognition of regionalization.  Even if the issue 
of timeframes is not (yet) fully determined in the ISSBs, they have identified the need to do so.  
Therefore such predictability must also be addr essed in the SPS Committee as the recognition process 
by the importing party comprises the work of the ISSBs.   
Comments on "Typical steps for administra tive procedures for recognition: summary of 
proposals" (Chapter IV of G/SPS/GEN/640)  
 
21. In order to illustrate the different steps in the recognition process at the level of the importing 
member in a concise manner, a decision tree is a valuable tool.   
22. Following from Figure 1, the European Commun ities does not agree with Step A being the 
beginning of the process, as it is incorporated in the following steps.  Hence paragraph 28 should start 
with the formal request for the recognition of a pest - or disease-free area, or an area of low pest or 
disease prevalence, initiating the bilateral process of recognition.  Within this process, specific 
attention should be paid to the official recogniti on by the ISSBs, reference to which is made in 
paragraph 31.   
23. The European Communities agrees  with Steps B through J.  Th e European Communities also 
subscribes to the necessity of Step K (expedited pro cess), as this is a very important factor in the 
discussion of predictability.  The European Communities thinks that the outline of the steps is a very 
good basis for further discussion in the Co mmittee on administrative guidelines.   
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