(BRUSSELS) - The European Union is set to ban imports of Ukrainian sunflower from Thursday after Kiev failed to dispel concerns about tainted shipments, a European Commission official said on Wednesday.

After some 40,000 tonnes of Ukrainian sunflower oil imports were found to be contaminated with mineral oil at the end of April, the commission asked Ukraine to fix the situation.

However, Ukranian authorities failed to guarantee by a Tuesday deadline that no more exports would be allowed as long as the issue remained unresolved, according to the commission official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

As a result, the official said: "We are thinking of announcing on Thursday a ban on (imports of) Ukrainian (sunflower) oil in the EU."

The commission has asked Ukraine to investigate the source of the contamination, plan measures to avoid future incidents and check batchs slated for export to the EU to ensure they were not tainted.

On Friday, Ukrainian authorities told the commission that they had still not uncovered the source of the problem, prompting Brussels to recommend that EU member states turn back shipments of Ukrainian sunflower oil.

By Tuesday evening Kiev had still not promised to halt shipments while the case is resolved, triggering the commission's resolve.

After contaminated batchs of the Ukrainian oil were discovered in the EU at the end of April, Spain temporarily banned the sale of sunflower oil until the tainted shipments were taken off the market.

More recently Greece said on Tuesday it was recalling all sunflower oil imported since January after a Ukrainian batch was found to be tainted with mineral oil.

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