A report by a British parliamentary committee has criticised bureaucracy and protectionist measures in Poland for preventing British ducks from being exported there.

The report, by the Trade and Industry Committeesaid that a British company which had won a contract to supply breeding ducks to Polish farmers was blocked by a Polish directive requiring the ducks first to be examined at an independent testing facility on Polish soil.

But no such testing station existed and so the deal fell through.

The committee said the case was an example of how Poland still had some way to go before it could hope to join the European Union.