Bosnia and Herzegovina does not export chicken to the European Union. Officially, the export has been approved, but due to strict procedures, Poultry farmers in Bosnia and Herzegovina will have to wait at least another 20 days for normalization. During that time, the losses will be measured in tens of millions of marks, considering that our country has been under ban for three months already, due to confirmed bird flu on a farm in Bosanski Petrovo Selo.
For months, chicken from Bosnia and Herzegovina has been unable to reach European shelves, which, until three months ago, were the main point of reference for domestic producers. Well, instead of income for tens of tons that we exported, we are now counting losses. Exports have stopped, but not production. That’s why the refrigerators are full, the domestic market is small, prices are falling, and expiration dates are running out, he writes Federalna.ba.
“It is now about a thousand and a half tons frozen, and if it continues for another 20, 25 days, that will go up to 2,000 tons of frozen meat, the costs of freezing, preservation, storage, the selling price is lower for frozen than for fresh, so it depends on how much it will cost. Meat storage is 65-70 marks per ton every month, and these are serious numbers,” says Velibor Popović, chairman of the BiH Poultry Coordinating Board.
And the real problem is the procedures, namely those in the European Union. Although the import from Bosnia and Herzegovina has been approved, the procedures for normalization and returning to the settings before the ban is an ongoing process. An additional problem is that just one infected area isolates the entire country.
“Even though it was said last Tuesday that we will return to the list of countries that can export, however, we have a new measure that has not been applied so far and we do not know why it was suddenly introduced now, that it is 20 days from the day it was published in the Official Gazette, and another full ten days since the decision was not even published,” added Popović.
“It is not in dispute that bird flu has been detected. There is a clearly prescribed mechanism that determines that for 30 days the crisis area should be stopped from exporting. Unfortunately, the EU sees us as one episiological area and every discovery of bird flu in BiH closes down the entire country. We are now negotiating and trying to agree on that regionalization with the EU,” said exporter Edin Jabandžić.
That the competent Committee of the European Union approved the export was also confirmed by the Veterinary Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
After confirming that there are no additional questions, the procedure for changing the legislation and restoring the status was initiated. At the session of the Standing Committee for Plants, Animals, Food and Animal Feed (PAFF Committee), held on May 12, 2026, it was voted positively to return Bosnia and Herzegovina to the list of countries approved for the export of poultry meat to the European Union. Export will be officially enabled in the following period.
And that period, according to poultry farmers, is the middle of June. Until then, the losses will be even greater, and the quantities of frozen meat will be accumulated. And that on the domestic market, which is certainly oversaturated with chicken, which is why export is the only guarantee of survival for poultry farmers. And tons of frozen meat will be consumed by the local population.
“That meat has a shelf life of about a year, of course, that meat will end up on the shelves of shopping centers in Bosnia and Herzegovina because that meat cannot go to the EU,” says Mevludin Kahvedžić, president of the FBiH Poultry Association.
The domestic market and CEFTE countries are currently the light for poultry farmers. Given that a lot of chicken is imported, the European Union market is necessary. Because the price of chicken is constantly falling, frozen ones even more so. The numbers testify to the importance of the European market: last year alone, Bosnia and Herzegovina sent almost three thousand tons of chicken to the shelves of the European Union. That this figure will be difficult to reach this year is confirmed by the data of the Foreign Trade Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which show that, in the first four months, only 590 tons were exported. Radio Sarajevo.
