On Thursday 23 February, the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Appellate Body confirmed that Russia’s import bans on live pigs, pork and other pig products from the EU is illegal under international trade rules.
In a press release, the Commission welcomed the ruling again and claimed that it sends out another strong signal to Russia and all WTO Members on their obligation to respect international standards and to adapt their measures to respect the principle of Regionalisation.
The panel underlined that WTO members can exercise their right to determine their appropriate levels of sanitary protection and to restrict imports on the basis of sanitary concerns as long as they are effectively responding to real sanitary risks. The Commission emphasised that this does not, therefore, concern products coming from disease-free areas.
Regionalisation helps to ensure that trade is carried out from certain regions of a country that had been recognised exempt from parasites or disease, even if the health situation in the rest of the country is not good.
In January 2014, Russia banned imports of pork from the EU due to cases of African swine fever being identified in the European Union. Russia imposed an EU-wide ban, as well as individual bans on imports of products from four other member states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland).
On 19 August 2016, a WTO panel acknowledged, “Russia's refusal to accept imports of certain EU products…violates the rules of the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (the SPS Agreement)”. (see EUROPE 11606).
Pork fat and offal exports to resume?
The Commission hopes that Russia will, “withdraw its unjustified measures and allow EU companies to resume normal business with their Russian partners”. For most of the products dealt with in this case, trade continues to be restricted by a politically motivated ban Russia imposed on EU agri-food products in August 2014.
However, certain products such as pig fat, offal and live animals for breeding were covered by the sanitary ban addressed by the WTO and are outside the scope of the 2014 political ban. The EU hopes that at least exports in these products will resume, following the WTO running in its favour.
The Commission concluded,” The EU will continue to use WTO procedures to ensure that international trade rules are effectively respected”.
Total trade between the EU and Russia fell by around 36 % in the period 2013-2015. Nevertheless, the EU remains by far Russia’s most important trading partner: in 2015, the EU exported to Russia goods worth €74 billion and imported products worth nearly €139 billion. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)