Romania receives 15.83mln-euro grant from European Commission as African swine fever compensation

Romania will receive a grant of 15.83 million euros this year from the European Commission for the compensation granted in the case of the African swine fever in 2019, the president of the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA), Robert Chioveanu told a press conference.

"Last week I had in Brussels meetings with officials of the European Commission and the heads of veterinary services in the member states and I presented an updated information on the current status of African swine fever outbreaks in Romania, but also a draft in the new strategy regarding the new approach on controlling and combating this disease. The most important thing (...) is that we have managed to publish a grant decision which provides for the granting of 15.813 million euros for Romania, in 2019, for the reimbursement of 75pct of the the eligible costs allocated for compensation in the case of the African swine fever, but also for a payment of 50pct, namely 6 million euros for 2018 and 7.5 million euros for 2019. However, this money will come next year. They proposed us to have experts from the Commission, starting from January-February, so that this new strategy is in line with the European provisions and we can access other funds for market policies," said the ANSVSA head.

He stated that the European Commission was presented the measures in view for combating this fever, the difficulties that the authorities are facing in effectively managing the disease, but also that the current plan was assumed only by the ANSVSA.

According to the data of December 17 presented by the ANSVSA, the African swine fever is currently evolving in Romania in 242 localities in 26 counties, with a total of 670 outbreaks (out of which 12 outbreaks in commercial exploitations and four outbreaks in type A exploitations), and in other 10 counties only boar cases were diagnosed.

Since the first report of the presence of the African swine fever virus in Romania, on July 31, 2017, in Satu-Mare County, until now 542,459 pigs affected by the disease have been culled and 2,412 cases have been diagnosed in boars