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Britain cancels extra border checks for animals ahead of UK-EU deal
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on August 18, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on August 18, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Britain suspends additional border checks on EU animal imports to facilitate trade ahead of a new UK-EU deal, while maintaining current compliance standards.
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain is suspending the previously planned introduction of extra border checks on live animal imports from the European Union to ease trade ahead of the implementation of a deal agreed in May to reduce friction, the UK government said on Monday.
Extra border checks on some animal and plant goods imported from Ireland will also be suspended.
May's sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal, part of a wider reset in UK-EU relations, will reduce paperwork and remove routine border checks on plant and animal products moving between the UK and EU, while maintaining high food standards.
However, the deal is yet to be implemented as details are still being negotiated.
In the meantime, British traders must continue to comply with the terms of the UK’s Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) that protect the country's biosecurity, including existing checks.
The suspension of the introduction of additional border checks follows the announcement in June that checks on EU fruit and vegetable imports had been scrapped.
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs could not give a timeline for implementation of the SPS deal.
When Britain left the EU's single market in 2021, the EU immediately enforced its rules, leading to port delays and prompting some British exporters to stop selling to the bloc.
Britain was much slower implementing its post-Brexit border arrangements, and after repeated delays and confusion it started to set new rules in phases from January last year.
(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Britain has suspended the planned introduction of extra border checks on live animal imports from the EU to facilitate trade ahead of a new deal.
The SPS deal aims to reduce paperwork and eliminate routine border checks on plant and animal products moving between the UK and EU.
British traders must continue to adhere to the UK's Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) to ensure the country's biosecurity, which includes existing checks.
In June, it was announced that checks on EU fruit and vegetable imports had been scrapped.
After Britain left the EU's single market in 2021, the EU enforced its rules immediately, leading to port delays that caused some British exporters to cease sales to the bloc.
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