Relations between the UK and the European Union are arguably at their best since the Brexit vote in 2016, but there is a cold front between the neighbors over the ban on continental imports of cheese and meat.

In April, Britain banned people from bringing all EU dairy products and a variety of meats into the country for personal consumption, saying the ban was necessary to prevent the possible spread of foot and mouth disease among British livestock after outbreaks in Europe earlier this year.

British tourists traveling to the continent were warned not to bring home foods such as cheese, chorizo, ham or sandwiches containing any of these a wide range of prohibited productseven if they were stamped or bought in duty-free shops at airports. The ban extends to cakes, biscuits and chocolate containing a high level of unprocessed dairy products or fresh cream.

Those found with prohibited items were told they would have to hand them over at the border or they would be confiscated and destroyed. Anyone violating the restriction could be fined £5,000 (about $6,700), the government said.

The British ban does not apply to commercial food imports because they are subject to stricter biosafety requirements, such as heat treatments and veterinary health certificates, the United Kingdom said.

Parisian cheesemongers, and particularly those around the Gare du Nord, where Eurostar trains travel to and from the UK, say the restrictions have hit sales to a vital customer base.

“Tourists are very important, and especially the English,” Alexandre Vilaca, founder and manager of the Fromagerie Ferdinand in Paris, told CNBC, noting that when he opened his cheese factory eight years ago, he had chosen the Gare du Nord neighborhood for his international visitors.

“In recent years it was very important to have English customers. We vacuum packed the cheese so that it could easily travel to the UK, and we started to have regular customers who stopped by our store to bring some gifts to families and friends… But a few months ago, customers told me that it was forbidden to bring cheese home,” he said.

“And it has had a huge impact on our sales to UK customers,” he added.

Vilaca said the ban was largely absurd, given that French authorities were “very, very strict” regarding health checks and regular checks on cheese producers, their products and their distribution. The English cheese makers Vilaca worked with were also upset by the ban, he said.

“We are proud when customers take home some souvenirs, maybe some wine, some cheese, a little bit of France in their bags, so to speak. So we don’t understand [the ban]”We are quite upset and it is bad news because, in terms of business, it is not very good.”

Temporary bans on continental food products entering or leaving the UK, or vice versa, are nothing new and it is worth noting that the EU introduced a permanent ban on Brits bringing animal and dairy products, for personal consumption, into the bloc after Brexit for the same reasons: to prevent the spread of disease.

Foot and mouth disease, or foot-and-mouth disease, is a serious concern for a close-knit continent like the EU as it can spread very quickly, especially given the region’s interconnected agricultural market and multiple transmission routes.

Foot and mouth disease does not pose a risk to humans, but it is highly contagious to cattle, sheep and pigs, and the disease can spread rapidly among livestock, with devastating consequences.

Outbreaks of foot and mouth disease were confirmed in Germany, Hungary and Slovakia earlier this year, but were contained after the countries quickly implemented animal health control measures in affected establishments, including livestock culling and protection and surveillance zones.

Those emergency measures were lifted after Germany wasdeclared free of foot and mouth diseasein April, and Hungary and Slovakia have not seen new outbreaks since April.

At the end of July, the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)said in an evaluationthat “while the incursions of foot and mouth disease into Europe earlier in the year were undoubtedly worrying, there have been no further reports since April, suggesting that the situation in Hungary and Slovakia is under control.”

While the report’s authors said the risk of FMD incursion into the UK was, in July, considered a “low (rare but can occur)” risk, the report warned that FMD can remain undetected for several months.

The UK government told CNBC that despite the containment of foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in Europe, the current ban on personal imports of cheese and many meats was aimed at protecting British farmers and UK food security.

“Earlier this year, we took immediate action to ban personal imports of meat and dairy from Europe after a wave of foot and mouth cases. We are also investing £1 billion [$1.3 billion] into a new National Biosecurity Center to boost our world-leading facilities and protect our farmers, food supply and economy,” a Defra spokesperson told CNBC.

“We will do whatever is necessary to protect our farmers from animal diseases,” the spokesperson added.

However, almost six months after the ban, questions are being raised about whether the current restrictions are excessive and no longer necessary.

Defra highlighted that it is not alone in implementing the current restrictions and is only doing what the EU has been doing for several years, since Brexit, as standard practice.

Asked when the ban could be lifted, given FMD cases are now contained to the continent, Defra said “the government’s response to FMD remains under constant review” and that it will “maintain restrictions in England for as long as personal imports of affected products pose biosecurity risks to Britain”.

The 2001 epidemic, which first broke out in the UK before spreading to the continent, had a devastating impact on the British farming community, with more than six million animals having to be destroyed and estimated to have cost the UK public and private sector a total of £8 billion.

Four million animals were destroyed in the EU and it is estimated that the outbreak has cost Member States 2.7 billion euros in terms of eradication measures and compensation to farmers.

The last outbreak in the United Kingdom, in 2007, only eight farms affected but what It is estimated to have cost £147 million. generally due to large-scale livestock movement bans.