“Verbal” agreement on continuation of current meat exports to Russia after accession of Bulgaria and Romania - Polish embargo remains

Brussels, 20/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - In Moscow on Tuesday evening, Commissioner Markos Kyprianou and Russian Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev reached a “verbal agreement in principle” on the continuation of current meat exports from the EU to Russia after the accession of Bulgaria and Romania on 1st January 2007. The verbal agreement still has to be put into a Memorandum of Understanding (a first meeting between European and Russian experts took place in Moscow on Wednesday morning), which both parties are planning to sign before 18 January, during the “Green Week” in Berlin. Over the last few weeks, Russia several times questioned Bulgaria's and Romania's ability to meet Community health and phytosanitary standards and threatened to ban all meat imports from the European Union as a whole as of 1st January. This threat now seems to have been removed, Commissioner Kyprianou said. The Commission was successful in persuading Russian authorities that the transition measures which will apply to the two new Member States on their accession (a ban on most Bulgarian and Romanian abattoirs selling meat on the Community market or exporting it to third countries) would be sufficient to prevent any meat which does not comply with European standards from entering the Russian market.

The verbal agreement by Moscow focuses on the continuation of current exports of European meat to Russia but does not resolve the problem of the Russian embargo currently in place against Polish meat at all. The issue was not even raised by Commissioner Kyprianou during his meeting with the Russian minister, as his spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday, “It was not possible for Mr Kyprianou to raise the Polish issue since the meeting was focused on the Russian threat of an EU wide ban”. The Commission, however, remains determined to pursue its efforts for finding a solution to the Polish problem as soon as possible and hopes that the “good atmosphere” created by Tuesday's verbal agreement will facilitate a resolution, underlined the Commission spokesperson. (hb)