Russia resumes vegetable imports from two EU countries
Photo © Tomo Jesenicnik - Fotolia
(MOSCOW) - Russia on Tuesday resumed vegetable imports from the Netherlands and Belgium after imposing an embargo on the 27-nation EU bloc due to Germany's killer E. coli outbreak at the start of the month.
"After an expert assessment, we allowed imports from the Netherlands and Belgium," Russia's consumer protection agency chief Gennady Onishchenko was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
"I signed the document today, although it has not been published yet," he was quoted as saying.
Russia infuriated the European Union on June 2 when it banned vegetable imports that account for about a quarter of the bloc's annual sales abroad.
European officials said the decision contradicted Russia's intention of joining the World Trade Organisation by the end of the year after nearly two decades of talks.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin immediately retorted that he would not let Russians get "poisoned" for the principle of fair trade and a Russia-EU summit this month hardly produced any progress.
The two sides entered still more talks in Moscow last week and eventually came away with a deal under which Russia would gradually resume imports from nations that could provide appropriate food safety certificates.
An official with the bloc at the time said that Poland would also shortly be added to the list.
Onishchenko said his Rospotrebnadzor agency's waiting list of nations included Spain and Denmark as well as Lithuania and the Czech Republic.
"We have also agreed to further expand the list," he was quoted as saying. Onishchenko said up to 30 percent of Russia's EU vegetables come from the Netherlands.
State television said that about a fifth of Russia's imports come from the European Union and another 60 percent is evenly divided between China and Turkey.
But most of those shipments come during the winter when Russia's vegetable farming season ends.
Both Russian and EU officials have called the certificates a temporary system that would be removed as soon as the strain mystery is fully understood and dealt with.
Yet the episode underscores Russia's much easier approach to temporary embargoes then that seen from nations under binding international trade agreements, some analysts say.
Russia has in the past slapped embargoes on wine and other products from Georgia and Moldova -- two ex-Soviet states with uneasy Moscow ties -- and also limited chicken and other shipments from the United States.
Russia has since received strong backing from top US officials to joint the world trade body this year and on Tuesday was also recognised as a market economy by Mexico.
Onishchenko said the Netherlands and Belgium were the first two countries
to have been allowed to resume imports because "their laboratories can be trusted."
But he said vegetables exported to Russia by nations such as Poland will have a harder time making it through because they are often initially produced in parts of Europe with lax safety standards.
"Those who re-export will be strictly punished," Russia's top food safety inspector was quoted as saying.