Brussels, 19/08/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 7 August, Russia announced that it had decreed a “total ban” on most food products from, amongst others, the European Union and the United States, in a stinging response to Western sanctions against Moscow (see EUROPE 11134).
This import ban, to run for one year, concerns beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheese, milk, vegetables and fruit from the EU and also from the USA, Australia, Canada and Norway.
However, the embargo could be lifted if “our partners show a constructive approach”, declared the Russian Prime Minister, Dmitri Medvedev. The full list of banned products has been published on the website of the Russian government. “All of these measures are simply a response (to Western sanctions: Ed). We did not wish the situation to develop in this way. There is nothing positive in the sanctions”, he continued.
EU reserves “right to take measures”. Following the announcement of these measures, the European Union announced that it reserved the “right to take measures” against Moscow in the wake of the “clearly political” decision of the Russian authorities in favour of a one-year ban on imports of most food products from Europe. “Further to a full assessment by the European Commission of the measures taken by the Russian Federation, we reserve the right to take the appropriate steps”, announced Frédéric Vincent, a Commission spokesperson.
The European Union is also planning to bring the Russian ban on many agri-food products from Europe before the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the EU's ambassador to Moscow, Vygaudas Usackas, told AFP on Thursday 7 August. “We will defend our producers by legal means. The EU always observes the law and its international commitments”, Usackas stressed. “The fundamental issue is the lack of trust. This has been eroded by the illegal actions of the annexation of Crimea and the destabilisation of eastern Ukraine”, Usackas continued. He believes that the ban will “mainly punish Russian consumers”, although the EU will also be affected by the situation, as it provides 40% of Russia's agri-food imports.
CAP comes to rescue of farmers. “I understand the concern expressed in the EU farming sector. I want to underline that the common agricultural policy has new and modernised tools to stand by them, as soon as it is needed, including our crisis reserve, which is already available now”, said the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Dacian Ciolos, on Friday 9 August. He went on to stress his confidence that “our farm sector” would reorient rapidly towards new markets. “But there must be support to help this transition happen smoothly”, he added. There will therefore be a European response to the problem. Following discussions with the Italian Presidency of the Council of the EU and several ministers, Ciolos argues that the most important thing is to react in a proportionate and rapid way. As always when market situations require, Ciolos has asked his services to establish a Task Force to analyse the potential impacts, sector by sector, of this Russian ban, and to assess how meaningful support can be provided if and where it is needed. A meeting of high-level agriculture experts of all member states of the EU was held on Thursday 14 August.
According to the most recent calculations of the Commission's agriculture services, EU exports of the products on the list of Russian sanctions were worth €5.252 billion in 2013, less than half of total EU agricultural exports to Russia. A proportion of this €5.252 billion includes products already banned under previous decisions (EU pork meat, Polish fruit and vegetables).
More detailed figures show that for meat and sausages (€1.2 billion in exports), the countries the hardest hit by the ban are Germany (€248.5 million), Denmark (€216.8 million) in Poland (€145.1 million). For dairy products (€1.3 billion), the most-affected EU countries are the Netherlands, Lithuania, Germany and Poland. As for fruit (€1.25 billion), Poland is in first place (€340 million), followed by Spain, Belgium and Greece. For vegetables (€769 million), Lithuania and Poland are the main exporters to the Russian market (our translation throughout). (LC)