TRACES is a web-based veterinarian certification tool controlling the import and export of live animals and animal products to and from the European Union. This network is under the responsibility of the European Commission. The name is an acronym for Trade Control and Expert System.
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Since the end of the nineteenth century, following the development of modern veterinary medicine and food safety, European states have built, in parallel with customs structures, veterinary inspection structures located at borders known as Border Inspection Posts. These structures check all goods of animal origin and live animals as well, in order to avoid outbreaks of zoonoses and epizooties. Following the development of office computerisation and computer networking in the 1980s, many countries started to think about veterinary computer certification.
In the 1990s, according to the First Pilar, the European Union began studying how to provide a European scale computer network dedicated to food safety and animal health with the aim of strengthening the Single Market and the protection of consumers.
The TRACES network started up in April 2004 as a replacement for the older ANIMO and SHIFT networks.
TRACES is a veterinary and sanitary network which controls movement, import and export of live animals and animal products in Europe. The Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection, Directorate G, unit G2, sector TRACES, is in charge of the workload.
TRACES stands for "Trade Control and Expert System", this acronym enhances the traceability aspect which constitutes the core element of the system and is a key factor of food safety. The first mention of this system is the decision of the Commission 2003/623/CE[1] of 19 August 2003.
TRACES is based on a network using internet veterinary authorities of Members States and participating third countries. Central and local authorities, border inspection posts and economics operators are linked via TRACES.
TRACES uses all the languages of the EU plus Russian.
TRACES provides electronic sanitary certificates mandatory for tracking goods and live animals: common veterinary entry document, CVED as defined in decision 2003/279/CE of the Commission[2] of 15 April 2003 for products (CVED P) and in regulation 2004/282/CE of the Commission[3] of the 18 February 2004 for CVED for live animals (CVED A).
TRACES sends an electronic message from the departure point to the transfer point and the arrival point to notify that a consignment is arriving. Similarly, every concerned point sends a message to others points which enables a well-developed follow up of the consignment (goods or animals) movement.
TRACES provides the ad-hoc European Union legislation, manages the Third country establishment list[4] which is the establishment agreed for importing into the EU, and keeps on file the rejected consignments and the reason for rejection.
Economic operators are able to start the process electronically by filling in the first part of the mandatory certificates for importing goods and animals into the EU.
The next step of TRACES will be electronic certification without any paper work.
At the moment, the legal basis for exchange of goods or live animals among third countries and the EU is a paper certificate, even if the decision 2004/292/CE[5] says it mandatory for Member States and economic operators to use TRACES since 31 December 2004.
The TRACES page in europa.eu. website.
Before TRACES, the European Union tried twice to create a computer-based network dedicated to food safety and animal health for exchange of goods and live animals.
ANIMO stands for "ANimal MOvement system". It is a computer-based tracking system for animal movements whereas the SHIFT network is devoted to goods movements.
The directive of Council 90/425/CEE[6] about veterinary and zoo-technical checks says, art 20, Alinea 1:
The directive of the Council 91/496/CEE[7] of 15 July 1991 defined the veterinary checks to be carried out on third countries imported goods.
Following these directives of the Council, the Commission began to create the structure of TRACES. The decision of the Commission 91/398/CEE[8] of 19 July 1991 is in relation to a computer-based network linking veterinary authorities (ANIMO).
The Commission launched an invitation to tender in December 1991. Decision of the Commission 91/638/CEE[9] of 3 December 1991 concerns the designation of the host centre.
The decision of the Commission 92/373/CEE[10] of 2 July 1992 states in art 1:
The decision of the Commission 92/486/CEE[11] of 25 September 1992 states how the common host will work with Member States.
The decision of the Commission 93/70/CEE[12] of 21 December 1992 specifies the message ANIMO will send using its own coding system. This coding system is different from the ISO code used by the World Customs Organisation and now in use in TRACES.
Finally the décision de la Commission 2002/459/CE[13] of 4 June 2002 defines the list of ANIMO units and repeals Decision 287/2000/CE.
ANIMO was used by Member States, Switzerland, Norway; Iceland, Andorra, San Marin, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus. ANIMO was only able to send messages and lacked interactivity with veterinary authorities.
It must be noted that at the beginning of the 1990s, the internet and all other networks were not common tools; this may explain why people were so reluctant to use AMINO.
ANIMO was able to trace the origin of animals and goods in case of problems and to warn veterinary authorities providing that data had been introduced into the system which was not systematically the case.
The system was lacking a database on European legislation about importation from third countries. This resulted in a loss of time at border inspection posts, waiting for the proper legislation to be found.
ANIMO was devoted only to live animals. It did not keep track of data concerning rejected animals or goods; a rejected consignment was able to try at another entry point at another border post.
More generally, ANIMO did not keep track of movements of animals or goods in the EU or importation.
For all these reasons the Commission tried to develop another tool: the network "SHIFT".
SHIFT stands for "System to assist with the Health controls of Import of items of veterinary concern at Frontier inspection posts from Third countries".
The need for developing SHIFT is expressed in the decision 88/192/CEE of the Council[14] of 28 March 1988. Art 1 states that: "The Commission shall be responsible for drawing up a programme for the development of computerization of veterinary importation procedures (Shift project)."
More accurately the decision 92/438/CEE of the Council[15] specifies the computerization of veterinary import procedures (SHIFT project) and is amending Directives 90/675/EEC, 91/496/EEC and 91/628/EEC and Decision 90/424/EEC, and repeal Decision 88/192/EEC. Again this Decision gives the Commission the responsibility of organising a computer network.
SHIFT was designed to electronically manage the sanitary aspects of animal and animal products coming from third countries. It was divided into three parts:
CIRD: "Community Import Requirement Database". This database dispatches to veterinary officials in border inspection posts the legislation necessary for imports. This part was also supposed to control the valid data of consignments. The impossibility of updating this database in real time was the main reason for the failure of the system.
RCS: "Rejected Consignments System". All information regarding rejected animals and animal products is kept in a database to make sure a rejected consignment would not try to enter through the border somewhere else. This part worked as a prototype in Greece and Belgium.
LMS: "List Management System". This part was managing the third countries establishments list. These establishments were approved to import into the EU by the veterinary authority of their country and listed by the Commission in this database.
SHIFT has never operated except partially in Belgium and Greece. The two systems, ANIMO and SHIFT, failed to provide a useful tool to strengthen food safety and secure animal health in Europe and to help build the single European market.
The failure happened not only because of a technical defect.
Following the failure of ANIMO and SHIFT, which proved to be ineffective during the outbreak of classical swine fever at the end of the 1990s, the European Parliament in the Resolution A5-0396/2000[16] of 13 December 2000 stated:
Alinea 23:
Alinea 24, in cauda venenum:
Again, in 2002, following the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease during 2001 the Parliament asked the Commission alinea 123:
The Decision of the Commission 24/2003/EC of 30 December 2002 foresees that the Commission will elaborate the new computer system and decision 2003/623/CE[1] of 19 August 2003 announces the development of an integrated computerized veterinary system known as TRACES: Article 1
This new network will provide (non exhaustive list)
TRACES has been developed with inside competencies and not with an external host centre. TRACES is under the responsibility of the Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection or DG-SANCO.
N.B. TRACES functions in all the European languages (except Gaelic) and in Chinese, Croatian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Russian and Turkish.
TRACES provides electronic, with the possibility to print, veterinary and sanitary certificates which are mandatory with consignments during import and movement in the EU. These certificates follow both live animals and animal products as they travel to and through the EU.
Notification is just an extemporaneous exchange of information as defined in Directive of the Council 90/425/CEE[21], laid down in Articles 4 and 8 and 10 and 20. Art 20, alinea 1:
At each step of the journey, at the border inspection post for example, TRACES provides an electronic message to whomever is concerned by this movement. If a main problem of public health or animal health is identified during an inspection, this notification is twinned by a notification in the RASFF alert network.
These establishments have to be approved by the veterinary authorities of their country before being listed by the Commission. This procedure allows them the right to import to the European Union. When filling in the certificate the economic operator has only to call up his own establishment in the list and tick the box. Third country Establishment List[22]. Regulation 854/2004 of the European Parliament[23].
TRACES provides European Union legislation covering the required field for each certificate, imposes the physical checks applicable and the reinforced checks. In case of serious threat or disease outbreak the Commission can activate via TRACES the necessary safeguard measures through a decision of the Commission 94/360/CE[24] of 20 May 1994 which deals with reinforced checks and safeguard measures.
Traceability is the core element of the system. TRACES keeps track of every importation or movement in the EU of animals or animal products which allows tracing instantaneously the journey in case of serious problem.
More precisely data about rejected consignments, and especially the reasons of rejection, are kept for the same purpose.
Existing supranational networks managing movement of animal and animal products from a food safety point of view:
Free trade agreements that potentially include sanitary and veterinary aspects:
TRACES constitutes a key element of how the European Union facilitates trade and improves health protection for the consumer, as laid down in the "First Pilar Principle".
Many countries are using computer networks to provide veterinary certification, New-Zealand, the United States of America and Canada, but TRACES is the only supranational network in the world working at a continental scale of 27 countries and almost 500 million people.