For the past month, Egyptian potato exports to Greece have been facing obstacles. Dena Rashed investigates Egyptian exporters along with officials from the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture have been on alert for the past month trying to put an end to what they describe as "unfair measures" taken by the Greek government against Egyptian potatoes. "The Greek side has posed many impediments, deliberately, on our exports of Egyptian potatoes," said Safwat El- Hadad, head of the Plant Quarantine Department in the Ministry of Agriculture and the director of the Potatoes Brown Rot Project (PBRP). El-Hadad argued that the problem goes back to the end of February, when exporters discovered they were allowed to deliver their shipments at only four ports, instead of the agreed-upon eight ports. "Limiting the number of ports, without prior notice, affected the delivery, especially when some of the assigned ports did not have adequate warehouses to store fresh vegetables like potatoes," he added, "Rhodes port, for example, is a tourist port that is not properly fit to receive agricultural exports." Another problem, both for a potato shipment that arrived in Athens and for others on the way, was that Greek authorities rejected the entry of the Egyptian potatoes in the usual packaging agreed upon by both sides and with the other European countries. "Potatoes are packaged in a one-ton pack, yet suddenly the Greek Ministry of Agriculture decided potatoes should only come in 50kg packs, and denied the clearance through customs of the one ton jumbo packages," said El-Hadad, with more than a trace of bitterness. The re-packaging process, without prior notice, added more costs for the Egyptian exporters. Although El-Hadad admitted that this was the first time Egyptian exports to Greece were obstructed in such ways, he claimed this time there was politics behind the move. "The new Greek minister of agriculture is originally from agricultural areas where potatoes are the prime product and he has proved bias for the Greek potatoes," said El-Haddad, "hindering the Egyptian potatoes exports to Greece would allow the Greek potatoes, despite being lower in quality, to be marketed." The magnitude of the problem for the Egyptian side could become clearer knowing that Greece has been one of the major importers of Egyptian potatoes throughout the past years. As of March 2005, Egypt has exported a total of 46,381 thousand tonnes to Greece out of a total of 175,431 thousand tonnes to countries of the European Commission (EC). Since almost 70 per cent of Egyptian potato exports are to the EC, any problem that occurs affects a large number of exporters. The head of the Egyptian Potatoes Exports Committee, Samir El-Naggar, believes the damage will be significant even over the long run. "The problem is not just about changing ports and packaging size," said El-Naggar. "The Greek Ministry of Agriculture was slow in taking samples -- to test it and thus allow the potatoes in -- which affected the quality of the potatoes. Part of the potato shipment was left on the ships for 10 days. It was simple: these are fresh vegetables with no adequate storage areas, so the damage was done." The problems were compounded when the Greek Ministry of Agriculture made a televised announcement of four suspected interceptions of brown rot disease in the Egyptian potato samples, and proclaimed Egyptian potatoes were unfit for human consumption. For El-Hadad, "this is simply against all logic." He strongly believes that "it is strange to receive these four interceptions in one notification, in one day and from one country, although the four shipments departed Egypt on different dates." Following this event, the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture demanded the intervention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Egyptian ambassador in Greece, Magda Shahin, to resolve the dispute. Broadening the scope of intervention was seen by the Egyptian side as the final level before resorting to International arbitration. "What happened definitely affected the reputation of our exports not just to the Greeks but to other countries of the world, although they only suspected the presence of brown rot disease. At the same time, brown rot disease does not pose any threat to human health, it only affects the crop," complained El- Hadad. As head of the PBRP, he doubted the adequacy of the tests and demanded an Egyptian Committee visits Greece to examine the cases too with an observer from the Netherlands. The Egyptian side has been complaining for the past years about the strict measures the EC imposes on Egyptian potatoes, especially regarding brown rot disease. "Although we only export from the pest-free areas approved by the EC, with fertilisers imported from them, if around six interceptions are found, then all exports are banned," said El-Hadad. "These measures are also applied only to Egypt, although brown rot disease is present in the EC countries. What might look unfair for the Egyptian side, is regarded by the EC as a reasonable way to prevent the disease from spreading. Although the general rule, as Barbara Stacher, first secretary of trade matters at the EC pointed out, is to ban Egyptian potatoes to the EC, it has granted Egypt the right to continue exporting potatoes on an exceptional basis every year. "Egyptian potatoes exports to the EC are increasing every year, so we can't be discriminatory," said Stacher, "besides the interceptions always come out at the end of the exporting season, not really affecting the exports." Meanwhile, as far as the EC is concerned, the Egyptian-Greek problem will soon come to an end. "The Greek have agreed to receive an Egyptian committee to discuss the problem, so hopefully they will reach common ground," added Stacher. On the other hand, El-Naggar believes such problems have already affected the Egyptian exporters as well as the Greek importers. "With every delay in receiving the potatoes, Greek importers' businesses were affected too, and that will probably make them hesitant to deal with us in the future," he said.
