Meat inspection: alignment of EU rules

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/687 of 30 January 2025 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/624 as regards ante-mortem inspections in slaughterhouses, ante-mortem inspections at the holding of provenance and post-mortem inspections

Update

In recent years, the European Union (EU) has adopted a number of new Regulations on animal health and hygiene. This Regulation aligns the rules on meat inspection with those changes. It includes replacing references to tuberculosis and brucellosis with scientific names; allowing the granting of disease-free status for these two diseases at establishment level (instead of at herd level); and clarifying the possibility to conduct on-farm ante-mortem (pre-death) inspections of sheep, goats, and farmed game.

Impacted Products

Meat

What is changing?

In recent years, the EU has updated its animal health rules in a number of areas. As a result, the rules on meat inspection (Regulation 2019/624) need to be updated for consistency. The changes include the following:

• References to “tuberculosis” and “brucellosis” are replaced by the scientific names “infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (M. bovis, M. caprae and M. tuberculosis)” and “infection with Brucella abortus, B. melitensis and B. suis”, consistent with Regulation 2016/429 (see EU Animal Health Law explained).
• Regarding infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, and with Brucella abortus, B. melitensis, and B. suis, disease-free status is granted at establishment level (instead of at herd level) consistent with Regulation 2020/689.
• The criteria and conditions for ante-mortem inspections on farm are amended to be consistent with Regulation 853/2004: sheep and goats may be inspected on farm; and game slaughtered on farm may be transported to a game-handling establishment (see Adaptation of food hygiene rules for products of animal origin).

Timeline

This Regulation applies from 27 April 2025.

Background

The Official Controls Regulation 2017/625 puts in place the EU rules for official controls both for production in the EU, and for products exported to the EU.

Regulations 2019/624 and 2019/627 supplement the Official Controls Regulation regarding specific rules for products of animal origin (on meat inspection and live bivalve molluscs). Their requirements apply to meat exported to the EU, and must be certified by the official veterinarian signing the certificates that should accompany meat consignments (see EU official health certificates for exports to the EU – explained).

Resources

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