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Following declining production in 2021 due to COVID-19 and outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), EU chicken meat production is expected to resume growth in 2022 and 2023. The EU chicken meat trade surplus will decrease as imports are growing and exports will continue to decline. As consumption in hotels, restaurants and institutional (HRI) outlets resumes, demand for inexpensive chicken meat, especially from Brazil and Thailand, is rising.

The European Commission will allocate €185.9 million (approximately $197.4 million) in 2023 for the promotion of European Union agri-food products. This program will focus on the promotion of agri-food products that align with the objectives of the EU Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy.

Warm and dry summer conditions have driven the EU’s MY 2022/23 citrus production down to 10.5 million metric tons (MT). The production decline has been especially steep in the case of orange production, which is anticipated to decline by nearly 13 percent.

The Netherlands, as a Member State of the European Union (EU), conforms to all EU regulations and directives. However, rules for the certification of imports are complicated and, in practice, are not always harmonized across EU Member States. This report lists the recent developments related to Dutch import requirements for the certification of agricultural and food imports.

The European Union (EU) follows a complex, rolling system of review for active ingredients and Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) in food. For agricultural inputs, U.S. farmers must know early in the process of review to prevent or mitigate the loss of, and/or access to, chemical inputs.

On November 30, 2022, the European Commission proposed a revision of the 1994 Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste. Some of the proposed requirements may impact agri-food sectors and U.S. exports of processed food and beverages to the European Union.

The implementation of a much-debated deposit scheme for metal cans in the Netherlands has been delayed until April 1, 2023, due to information technology challenges surrounding the deposit system and an insufficient number of machines to press returned cans.

The European Commission has published a draft of Article 118 of the EU Veterinary Medicinal Products Regulation (EU) 2019/6, which extends the EU ban on the use of certain antimicrobials in animals and products of animal origin to imports into the Union.

On November 9, 2022, the European Commission published a Communication on the availability and affordability of fertilizers to propose solutions to the important increase in prices that EU farmers are facing. The Communication was met with heavy criticism by European farmers who expected more impactful solutions.

A Value Added Tax (VAT) of zero percent for vegetables and fruit was part of the 2021 Dutch government's coalition agreement. Realizing this VAT reduction, however, has been met with several challenges pertaining to efficiency, efficacy, and feasibility.

On December 2, 2022, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) published a notice for public comment on 173 products from the European Union (EU) that are applying for protection as geographic indicator (GI) products.

The European Union’s (EU) complex and lengthy policy framework for biotechnology creates a challenging environment for research and limits access to innovative tools for EU farmers.