Updated report covers Iceland and Norway’s audit actions

The progress made by Norway and Iceland on food-related audit recommendations has been disclosed in an updated report.

Norway and Iceland are part of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). The EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) monitors how these countries implement European Economic Area (EEA) rules on food and feed safety, animal health, and welfare.

ESA recently updated the country profile reports for Iceland and Norway. The revision reflects actions taken in the past year. 

Iceland’s progress
Iceland’s country profile published in June 2023 followed a general review audit. It gives an overview of ESA’s assessments of Iceland’s follow-up on recommendations made in audits between January 2018 and November 2022. 

For three audits, Iceland provided no or limited information in 2024. For the others, ESA concluded that nine recommendations had been adequately addressed.

ESA found that actions to address three recommendations, two related to an audit on fishery products and one connected to the audit on protection of animals at the time of slaughter, were not taken as previously agreed and urged Iceland to put in place corrective measures.

An example of a recommendation was that the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST) should ensure official controls of fishery products include all relevant elements in EU legislation, such as organoleptic examinations, freshness indicators, histamine, residues and contaminants, microbiological checks and parasites. The deadline for corrective actions was the end of 2023 but no updates have been provided since June 2023.

Cases on the national audit system and import control of products of non-animal origin have been closed. Overall, 28 of 92 recommendations from the period covered by the general review audit remain open. This includes 20 were work has been started to address the recommendation and three were action is still required.

The ESA also sent two letters of formal notice to Iceland in 2024, requesting the country to implement an effective system for official controls and to comply with the rules on animal by-products.

Norway verdict
Norway’s country profile was also published in June 2023 and includes an overview of the ESA’s follow-up on recommendations made in audits between April 2018 and November 2022. The ESA concluded that Norway had addressed 10 additional recommendations and cases on production of ready-to-eat food and poultry meat and poultry meat products were closed.

However, the ESA found that adequate actions on one recommendation, concerning the protection of laying hens and chickens kept for meat production, were not implemented as agreed. The ESA urged Norway to address this situation.

Norway has addressed 48 out of 54 recommendations from the period covered by the general review audit in 2023. Five were still in progress and action was still required for one topic.

Norway also had an in progress recommendation related to official controls of fishery products. In December 2023, Mattilsynet (Norwegian Food Safety Authority) provided the ESA with a risk assessment which was to be used to create a monitoring plan for official sampling.

The ESA has also published its annual report on the overall operation of official controls in the food and veterinary areas in Iceland and Norway in 2023.

It describes the activities carried out by both ESA and the national authorities. Audits identified problems in some sectors related to approval procedures for food businesses or enforcement of EEA law.

In October 2023, the ESA closed an infringement case against Norway concerning import controls on products of animal origin after the country made legislative and administrative changes to comply with EEA rules.

ESA noted a significant improvement in information provided in annual reports from Iceland and Norway. However, inconsistencies in the data reported limited the ability to compare figures accurately and to draw comprehensive conclusions on the official controls carried out. 

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