EU Lifts the Fukushima Restrictions for Food from Japan

On July 13, during the EU-Japan Summit, the President of the European Commission announced¹ that the Commission is lifting the import restrictions for food from Japan, introduced after the nuclear accident at Fukushima in 2011. The decision was made based on positive results from product inspection and successive reviews verifying the safety of Japanese food.

On July 14, EU released Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1453², officially repealing the restrictions on imported food originating in or dispatching from Japan. The new Regulation will take effect on August 3, 2023. Although the restrictions have been lifted, Japan will continue to maintain a control system to detect the presence of radionuclides in food and release the monitoring result.

At present, countries like US and Canada have lifted their restrictions on food from Japan. But places like South Korea, Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan area remain their import restrictions on certain Japanese foods at different levels.