Russia considers Spanish meat imports ban

Speaking at a recent press conference, head of Rosselkhoznadzor Sergei Dankvert said: “We are now conducting a meeting to review the results of recent inspections carried out in a number of plants in Spain and, based on these results, we might take serious restriction measures.”​

According to Dankvert, Russian inspectors checked 19 Spanish companies that export animal products to countries in the Customs Union.

“Even given the fact that we can make some allowances, 62% of them do not meet our requirements at all. And if we take into account the systemic weaknesses of control related to the fact that laboratory monitoring of exported products is carried out according to European rules, we can say that none of the inspected companies would pass,”​ said Dankvert.

According to Dankvert, the final decision on the Spanish companies will be taken after consultation with colleagues from the Customs Union, to be held in the near future.

Controls​

Rosselkhoznadzor experts last week conducted a number of inspections on the EU system of border control of meat in Bulgaria, Romania and Spain. As a result, employees of the Russian veterinary service have been extremely dissatisfied with the EU veterinary control system, describing controls as “extremely inadequate”​.

“The border control for exports of animal origin from the EU are very inadequate. Goods are not inspected and are not recorded in the register, while checks on imports of animal products intended for use in the EU are conducted very carefully with the use of risk management systems,”​ noted the Rosselkhoznadzor report.