Brussels says EU united in food ban talks with Russia

02-Feb-2015 - Last updated on 03-Feb-2015 at 13:59 GMT

EU officials have not received any direct information on Russia's inspection plans

The European Commission stood by its position on Friday (30 January) that the European Union (EU) member states were united regarding talks with Russia about the possible lifting of the latter’s ban on EU food products such as pork meat.

A Russian official said last week that his country was ready to resume inspections, with the goal of lifting the ban on pork meat from France, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

It was reported at the time that this decision came following talks between Sergey Dankvert, the head of Russian food safety body, Rosselkhoznadzor, and Ladislav Miko, acting head of the Commission’s directorate general for health and food safety.

However, Brussels has now stated that at no time did the two officials discuss the possibility of opening the Russian pork market to only select EU countries. "These were technical discussions addressing the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) issue regarding African swine fever (ASF)," the Commission’s health and food safety spokesperson, Enrico Brivio, told GlobalMeatNews.

Russia banned all pork meat exports from the EU at the beginning of 2014, due to safety concerns following ASF outbreaks in neighbouring Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

"There is no agreement reached and there will continue to be engagement on SPS issues that has been ongoing since February 2014," the EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan said at the end of an EU agriculture ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday (26 January).

He added that the Commission and member states all agreed at that meeting that they needed to work together when negotiating with Russia regarding the opening of its market for pork meat or any other products affected by the food import ban, introduced last year. Brussels discourages bilateral talks between Russia and individual EU member states on these issues, a Commission official told GlobalMeatNews.

Appearing to respond to these comments on EU unity, Dankvert was quoted on Thursday (29 January) by the Russian press agency Interfax, saying Russian authorities may reconsider their decision to start inspections in the six EU countries in view of resuming pork meat exports.

Brivio said on Friday that EU officials had not received any direct information from their Russian counterparts on their inspection plans.