Calls for greater horse movement between Britain and Europe
The European and Mediterranean Horseracing Federation (EMHF) has called for thoroughbreds to again move between Great Britain and the EU without routine border checks.
It wants this delivered through the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement the two sides aim to conclude at their Brussels summit on November 20.
The federation represents racing authorities in 23 countries. It has written to European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic and to Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s Minister of State for European Affairs, while Ireland holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU. It asks that the agreement give Great Britain access to Article 69 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/688.
Article 69 allows registered horses to move between member states without an animal health certificate where the countries concerned agree and can trace the animals. The EMHF wants it used to rebuild the Tripartite Agreement between France, Ireland and the UK, which ran for some 50 years until January 1, 2021.
By 2025, thoroughbred movements between the EU and Great Britain were 27.5 per cent below 2019 levels, the EMHF said.
Breeding and other non-racing movements from Britain to continental Europe were 40 per cent lower. Over the same period, Britain’s movements with non-EU countries rose 4 per cent.
“Since 2021, that trust has been replaced by paperwork and long waits at border posts, and thoroughbred movements between Britain and the EU have fallen by more than a quarter, even as Britain’s movements with the rest of the world have grown. The tools to fix this already exist in EU law,” EMHF chief executive Dr Paull Khan said.
