The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, by Resolution No. 345 of March 28, 2025, amended its own Resolution No. 537 of May 7, 2022, which concerns the specifics of state control over compliance with legislation in the field of food safety, feed, products of animal origin, animal health and welfare during martial law.
In particular, the resolution stated: excluded norm, which provided special conditions for conducting control under martial law. This norm allowed:
- Conduct state control at border checkpoints and in customs control zones only if there are appropriate opportunities for this.;
- Conduct simplified control of imported food cargoes— mostly in the form of documentary checks and compliance checks. Full control (physical inspection and laboratory tests) was applied only in cases expressly provided for by law;
- Regarding cargo with products of non-animal origin— mainly documentary control was also established, except in cases provided for by law or if such goods were included in the list of products subject to enhanced control in accordance with the order of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy dated March 26, 2018 No. 158.
Thus, the government abolished the temporary simplifications that were in effect during martial law, restoring a full-fledged regime of state control in the relevant area.
Therefore, from the moment the amendments to Resolution No. 537 come into force, namely 02.06.2025, the following checks will be carried out during state control at the border:
- compliance check – a form of state control on the state border of Ukraine, which consists of visual inspectionand is carried out to verify whether the international certificate(s) and/or documents accompanying the cargo correspond to the marking and contents of the cargo being imported (shipped) into the customs territory of Ukraine;
- documentary check – a form of state control at the state border of Ukraine of cargo imported (shipped) to the customs territory of Ukraine, which consists in carrying out an inspection international certificate and other documentsrequired by law, and/or other documents required by customs regulations and containing information on the compliance of the cargo with legislation on food, feed, animal by-products;
- physical examination – a form of state control at the state border of Ukraine, which may include inspection of vehicles, packaging, marking, temperature, sampling, conducting simple and/or laboratory examinations (tests) to verify the conformity of the cargo, imported (shipped) to the customs territory of Ukraine, to the legislation on food products, feed, and animal by-products
Physical examination, in turn, may include the following types of examinations (tests):
1) simple research;
2) and/or laboratory tests.
From now on, the State Veterinary Inspector will carry out a physical inspection of each consignment, except in cases where a reduced frequency of physical inspections is applied. Regardless of the approved frequency, a physical inspection of the consignment is necessarily carried out if, based on the results of its documentary inspection and compliance check, there is a reasonable suspicion of non-compliance.
Source: Quality management.
