Veterinary office, consumer protection

In the area of food, feed and veterinary law, the competent authorities carry out official controls in accordance with European and national requirements. To ensure that sufficient financial resources are available to carry out these controls, fees are generally charged for these controls.

No fees are charged if

- the inspections are regular inspections that have not led to any complaints or have led to only minor complaints overall, and

- the levying of fees is not prescribed in special legal regulations or due to special monitoring requirements. Such legislation prescribing the levying of fees exists, for example, for inspections in establishments handling meat.

Fees for certain inspections in the area of food, feed and veterinary monitoring must be levied to cover costs. Legal requirements for charging fees are contained in particular in Regulation (EU) 2017/625 as well as the Cost Act and the Cost List.

In the following areas, compulsory fees are to be charged due to European legal requirements (Art. 79 Regulation (EU) 2017/625):

- Official controls in the field of meat production and processing (in slaughterhouses, cutting plants and game processing plants).

- import controls on foodstuffs

- official controls for the approval of feed establishments

- controls that become necessary as a result of a detected infringement.

In principle, the following factors are to be taken into account when calculating these mandatory fees (Art. 81 Regulation (EU) 2017/625):

- Costs of wages and salaries of staff - including auxiliary and administrative staff - involved in the performance of official controls, as well as costs of social security, retirement benefits and insurance of such staff;

- Costs of furnishings and equipment, including maintenance and insurance costs and other incidental costs;

- Costs of consumables and supplies;

- Costs of services imposed by delegated agencies on competent authorities for official cotrolls delegated to such delegated agencies;

- Costs of training of personnel, other than professional training, necessary to attain qualifications

- Costs of travel and related per diems of personnel;

- Costs of sampling and laboratory analysis, testing and diagnosis charged by official laboratories for these tasks.

In accordance with European legal requirements, the competent authorities must ensure a high degree of transparency with regard to the setting of fees in the area of mandatory fees under European law.