The European Union (EU) has issued legislation to ban the use of certain antimicrobial medical products in livestock in an attempt to address the issue of antimicrobial resistance, and the EU is enforcing this ban on all trading partners. Therefore, animal origin products originating from outside of the EU that are exported to the EU must also comply with the EU's restrictions on antimicrobials. As such, U.S. processers intending to export product to Europe, directly and/or after further processing in other countries, must ensure that milk from their producers does not come from dairy cows who were administered with any of the restricted drugs.

The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) has reviewed the list of prohibited substances and does not expect these drugs to be actively used in the United States. Most of the drugs are currently (a) not listed as approved pharmaceuticals in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), (b) are listed in the CFR as only approved for human use, or (c) not approved for use in lactating cattle and extra-label use is prohibited. However, there are two drug categories for which extra-label use may theoretically take place because is not expressly prohibited in the CFR:

• Carboxypenicillins, which are approved for horses.
• Liptopeptides, which are approved for dogs and cats.

The EU intends to enforce the prohibition of the use of certain antimicrobials on third countries via export certification. On May 4, they published Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/905, which directs the EU to update the attestations of its health certificates to reflect the new antimicrobial restrictions for livestock. The European Commission (EC) has not stated a date for when the updated certificates will be published, or when their use will be required. Please note, the use of the drugs included in the list linked to above is already prohibited; however, non-EU governments, like the U.S., will need to attest to compliance with the EU's antimicrobial requirements on their EU health certificates.

USDEC is currently in discussions with the USG on whether they will require an expansion of the export verification program in order to make the required attestation on antimicrobials, or if the USG will engage in another solution. USDEC will provide members with updates once they are available. Please reach out to Bryan Jacoby bjacoby@usdec.org with any questions.