Though it may not grab the headlines the way the trade restrictions on genetically modified foods (see separate article) do, a similar logjam exists on the other side of the Atlantic that is hindering the export of ornamental plants from Europe. Producers of potted plants, cut flowers and seeds have been waiting for years, in one case for decades, to get the necessary permit from the United States authorities. The products in question are not destined for cultivation on large-scale farms, but rather for ordinary consumers, who typically buy them in garden centres or supermarkets. The poster boy case is a plant, Bromeliads. Its application to be put on US shop shelves was submitted 25 years ago and yet it has still not been approved, even though the risk assessment on it was completed in 1998.

Despite these bureaucratic delays, there is a significant volume of EU exports that does reach the American market – approximately US$260 million from the EU27 in nursery products in 2008. But sources involved in trying to clear the logjam insisted there was potential for a much bigger volume of exports. The Netherlands is by far the biggest player at the moment, accounting for US$231 million of current exports. Denmark and Italy are also involved in the trade but with much smaller volumes: US$10 million and US$0.865 million, respectively, in 2008, according to trade data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The purpose of the approval procedure is to ensure that plant diseases are not inadvertently introduced into the US through the importation of plants, either in the plant itself or in the accompanying soil. The US officials responsible for processing the import requests work in the Plant Protection and Quarantine unit of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which is an agency within the USDA. Its regulations state that import permits must be obtained for nursery stock plants, small lots of seed, fruits and vegetables, timber, cotton, cut flowers, threatened or endangered plant species, and protected plants.

“We accept that the US has legitimate concerns about the spread of plant diseases but the process should not take so long,” said one EU official. According to a Dutch diplomat who is pushing the US authorities to speed up the approval process, an entire rule-making procedure has to be gone through for each individual request. APHIS must complete an assessment, as must the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the Department of Interior, before the green light can be given. APHIS tightened the rules even further a year ago, the official noted, by requiring exporters to provide additional information when they apply for the import permit.

Asked what really lay behind these long delays, the official suggested that APHIS’ priority was to process requests from US producers who wish to export their plants first, rather than processing import requests from EU producers. The situation has been hard to fathom for the Dutch in particular because whereas sometimes in such cases the red tape can be a veil for protectionism, the Netherlands has generally had good trade relations with the US. In other words, it cannot be compared to sectors where there are longstanding rivalries and tensions - for example between the US and France over trade in dairy, beef and poultry products. EU-US working groups have been set up to try to work through the backlog but they are not making fast progress, an EU official noted.

EU27 nursery product exports to US ($)

Main exporting countries: the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark 

2004: 272 mn; 2005: 275 mn; 2006; 281 mn; 2007: 283 mn; 2008: 260 mn