A European Commission regulation allowing imports of live and fresh molluscan shellfish and certain marine invertebrates from the U.S. expired Thursday, as the two sides could not come to agreement on the issue of shellfish equivalency, Stephane Vrignaud, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) representative to the European Union, told IntraFish.
"We will try to lift this ban while we continue our discussions regarding this shellfish equivalency determination," said Vrignaud.
Unlike fishery products, the EU and the U.S. sanitary systems for shellfish are not equivalent, as the U.S.
