Russia could ease restrictions on Lituanian meat

Egidijus Mackevičius, president of the Lithuanian Meat Processors Association told Globalmeatnews.com​ of problems supplying ready-to-eat meat products to the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.
“We have had problems with customs on the border. Trucks are remaining for seven to ten days, for thorough inspections in which every box is opened,”​ explained Mackevičius.

There have also been recent reports of customs hold-ups of trucks crossing the border to mainland Russia (via Belarus), noted Mackevičius, with some being held for up to 20 days during September.

This and a temporary ban on Lithuanian dairy products exports to Russia have prompted the Lithuanian government and the EU to protest strongly to Moscow.

At a European Parliament debate last week, Lithuania’s deputy foreign affairs minister Vytautas Leškevičius branded the Russian measures an “attack”​ not only on Lithuania, but on the whole of the EU – his country currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

EU trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht warned that he would take the issue to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), whose rules ban arbitrary import bans that are not based on science – Russia became a WTO member last year.

“In accordance with Russia’s WTO commitments, any restriction based on sanitary grounds must be justified by the risk at stake, and the measure taken must be proportionate to the level of risk identified,”​ wrote De Gucht in a statement later.  

Time-consuming customs checks have been losing Lithuanian hauliers and their food industry customers more than Euro EUR2 million a day, the parliament debate was told.

And some MEPs claimed the tactics were part of a strategy to undermine EU talks to forge close trading relationships with Russian neighbours such as Ukraine and Moldova.

Mackevičius hoped the pressure would work, and noted that yesterday lorries laden with Lithuanian meat were able to enter mainland Russian without problems: “It looks like the situation for meat products will be improving,” he predicted.​

Also a Federal Customs Service of Russia statement yesterday claimed that its customs crack-down on Lithuanian exports had been effective and predicted trade would return to normal: “As a result of these measures, the number of customs violations of Lithuanian importers and motor carriers declined and is now no more than average,”​ it said.