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TRACES


TRACES, or Trade Control and Expert System, is a web-based veterinarian certification tool used by the European Union for controlling the import and export of live animals and animal products within and without its borders. Its network falls under the responsibility of the European Commission.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, following the development of modern veterinary medicine and food safety, European states have built, in parallel with customs structures, veterinary inspection stations located at the borders known as Border Inspection Posts. There all goods of animal origin including live animals are checked in order to avoid outbreaks of zoonoses and epizooties. Following the development of office computerisation and computer networking in the '80s, many countries started to think about veterinary computer certification.

In the 1990s, according to the its first pillar, the European Union began studying how to provide a European-scale computer network dedicated to food safety and animal health with the aim of strengthening the single European market and the protection of consumers.

The TRACES network started up in April 2004 as a replacement for the older ANIMO and SHIFT networks. (See History section.)

TRACES stands for "Trade Control and Expert System", this acronym enhances the traceability aspect which constitutes the core element of the system and is a key factor of food safety. The first mention of this system was in the decision of the Commission 2003/623/CE of 19 August 2003.

It is based on a network using internet veterinary authorities of member states and participating non-EU countries. Through it, central and local authorities, border inspection posts and economics operators are linked.

It provides electronic sanitary certificates mandatory for tracking goods and live animals: Common Veterinary Entry Document, or CVED as defined in decision 2003/279/CE of the Commission of 15 April 2003 for products (CVED P) and in regulation 2004/282/CE of the Commission of the 18 February 2004 for CVED for live animals (CVED A).


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