Egypt and the European Union fight over potatoes

Potatoes are once again a hot topic of contention between Egypt and the European Union. A couple of weeks ago, following the discovery of some cases of brown rot, the EU decided to impose a ban on Egyptian potato exports. An Egyptian-EU agreement stipulates that should brown rot be found in more than five shipments, all Egyptian potato exports will be prevented from entering the EU market. And while Egypt has insisted that only four cases have been found, the EU says that it has discovered six.

The EU accuses the Egyptian authorities of not applying strict measures to avoid exporting infected potatoes.

On the other hand, the Egyptian government believes that the reason behind the move is to protect local European produce from competition.

At any rate, a high-level delegation of Egyptian officials will fly to Brussels to attend a bilateral meeting scheduled for 17 September. The meeting will discuss technical issues and regulations relating to Egyptian potato exports prior to the meeting of the European Standing Committee on Plant Health, set for 23 September.

For many years Egypt has been exporting potatoes to the EU, and in fact potatoes are among the key agricultural exports to the EU. According to Ministry of Agriculture figures for 2009, the total volume of Egyptian potato exports was 334,607 tonnes, of which 203,000 tonnes were exported to EU member countries.