We must protect our position as Europe's leading exporter of sheep and I welcome the business community's support for fair and robust technical solutions that we will present to the European Commission (EC), President of the National Sanitary, Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA) Alexandru Nicolae Bociu said within a working meeting with associations representing operators and exporters in the sector, held in Constanta.
According to an ANSVSA press release sent to AGERPRES on Monday, the export market, exclusively to non-EU destinations, generated more than 210 million euros in the first ten months of 2025. This year, with exports of one million head already completed, growth is forecast at a minimum of 40%.
"The ANSVSA has opened new sheep export markets outside Europe precisely because Romania's potential is huge. It is unfair to the thousands of shepherds, farmers, breeders and honest exporters for this potential to be blocked through restrictions, because in the end they are the ones who bear the cost. Our mission is to act quickly and in a unified manner, at all levels, to reverse this decision. We appreciate the confidence we have received from the business community for a unified institutional strategy within the ANSVSA. The measures will be presented urgently to the European Commission," Bociu underscored.
Following consultations in Constanta, the associations of exporters and operators of collection centres unanimously signed a Technical Agreement in support of the ANSVSA's institutional strategy, a document through which the business community validates the proposed measures that are to be presented to the European Commission. Through this agreement, the signatories underline that the protection of international contracts and the sector's economic record depend critically on maintaining administrative stability at the level of the authority's leadership.
Macroeconomic data from the National Institute of Statistics (INS), quoted by the ANSVSA, confirm that Romania's sheep livestock has grown steadily, exceeding the threshold of 10 million head, placing Romania second in the European Union in terms of livestock numbers and first in live animal exports.
"The opening and securing of the Algerian market, with a contract for one million head and air cargo transport fully covered by external partners, as well as the strengthening of active markets such as Saudi Arabia, reopened in February 2025, Jordan, Morocco, China, Azerbaijan and Albania, represent new milestones in strengthening Romania's position in agricultural exports. In this context of strong economic performance, the ANSVSA president warns that non-compliance with biosecurity rules by illegal operators engaged in clandestine trade directly undermines the technical arguments the institution uses in Brussels to maintain open markets. The action plan and immediate solutions discussed on Monday in Constanta by ANSVSA President Alexandru Bociu include firm steps towards the European Commission for the swift application of the regionalisation principle, so that animals originating from areas and counties unaffected by disease can be exported without impediment," the quoted source mentioned.
In parallel, the ANSVSA specialists are technically assessing the opportunity of introducing strategic vaccination against sheep and goat pox, a measure that will be integrated into the European negotiation file as an additional immune barrier to secure livestock and halt the spread of the virus.
Representatives of exporters' associations and breeders will be directly involved, on a technical basis, in a dedicated ANSVSA working group, while domestically the acceleration of field assessments has been ordered for the submission of documentation to the Government, in view of allocating compensation.
Comentează