The Austrian customs office and the Federal Office for Food Safety are stepping up cooperation in controls along the food chain

2023-08-13 10:00:12

Cooperation agreement brings more security for consumers of food and protection of domestic agriculture from imported pests

Vienna (OTS) – The Austrian Customs Office (ZAÖ) and the Federal Office for Food Safety (BAES) signed a cooperation agreement in July 2023, thereby strengthening their strategic and practical cooperation. The goal is to ensure even more stringent controls of imported plants, food and feed as well as quality along the food chain in the future.
Finance Minister Magnus Brunner emphasizes the cross-departmental bundling of resources: “With this important agreement and the establishment of this structure, the Austrian customs office and the Federal Office for Food Safety are taking an important step towards efficiently and successfully fulfilling their tasks. The safety of the population and our location are top priority goals that we are pursuing together with combined strength.”

Strategic cooperation on import controls
The two authorities rely on stronger strategic cooperation, information exchange and cooperation in their overlapping sphere of activity. These similarities in the daily work of the Federal Office for Food Safety and the Austrian customs office lie in the import controls, whereby the ZAÖ is responsible for the control of all imported goods and the BAES for those goods that, for example, comply with the Feed, Fertilizer, Seed and Plant Protection Act or are subject to the Marketing Standards Act. With the agreement, the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Office for Food Safety are strengthening the exchange of expertise.

“Our customs officers are now also formally strengthening the technical cooperation in control tasks, which fall well within our area of ​​responsibility both thematically and in everyday work. Of course, the goods described are among those items that our bodies clear through customs and check once more and once more in the course of their work. For further successful cooperation, however, shared knowledge and its transfer is of essential importance. That’s why I’m glad that our agreement also takes into account the joint training and further education of specific specialist knowledge and contains the needs assessment for educational offers. In this way, we also ensure the quality of our work through knowledge management and the exchange of experience, from which everyone will benefit”, emphasizes ZAÖ board member Heike Fetka-Blüthner one aspect of the new agreement.

For BAES Director Thomas Kickinger, “particularly in control, the joint exchange of knowledge and a coordinated approach by the authorities involved are of crucial importance”. With this agreement, cooperation in controls along the food chain is raised to a new level: “I would like to thank the colleagues at the Austrian customs office for the good cooperation. Close checks on imports or travel increase overall safety for the native flora and the quality of our agricultural products.”

Photos: bit.ly/3KCWc55

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