EU and Russia reach agreement to resume trade of vegetables
June 23rd, 2011 - 5:25 am ICT by BNO NewsMOSCOW (BNO NEWS) — The European Union and Russia on Wednesday reached an agreement for the immediate resumption of trade of vegetables, ending the Russian ban on EU products due to the E. coli outbreak in Germany.
The agreement was signed in Moscow by Russian authorities and a EU delegation led by European Commissioner John Dalli. Under the deal, any Member State exporting fresh vegetables to Russia will have to certify the origin of the product and the absence of E. Coli for a limited period of time.
“Following today’s agreement I now expect a swift resumption of EU’s exports to Russia. Both sides have shown good will to make sure that this incident is now behind us,” said Health Commissioner Dalli.
The general monitoring tests on the vegetables will be performed by national laboratories selected by the European Commission, which will also name competent national authorities entitled to sign the certificate on lots exported to Russia.
“A special regime will be introduced, but the embargo has not been canceled yet,” said Gennady Onishchenko, head of Russia’s sanitary watchdog Rospotrebnadzor. “The European Commission accepted Russia’s terms, which were formulated at the Russia-EU summit in Nizhny Novgorod earlier this month.”
In early June, Russia banned the import of fresh vegetables for the 27 EU Member States due to the new, never before seen strain of E. coli that erupted in Germany and affected over 1,600 people and killed more than 40.
The monitoring system will be lifted by the Commission if no more deaths due to E. coli are registered within the next ten days. Russia previously aid the ban will not be lifted until the source of the infection was identified.
Initially, it was suspected that Spanish cucumbers carried the bacteria but this theory was ruled out by the EU and the alert notification from the Rapid Alert System on Food and Feed (RASFF) was removed.
The talks between the EU and Russia began after the latest tests in Spain and Germany showed that the EU vegetables were not responsible for spreading of the E. coli strain. Last week, German health officials said that contaminated sprouts were likely to have caused the outbreak.
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Tags: alert notification, bno, commissioner john, cucumbers, e coli, e coli outbreak, eu member states, european commission, health commissioner, john dalli, member state, monitoring system, national authorities, national laboratories, novgorod, rapid alert system, rasff, resumption, russian authorities, watchdog