Ban On EU Meat Threatened
The St. Petersburg Times
November 24, 2006
Russia has threatened to ban all imports of animal products from the European Union, an EU spokesman said Wednesday just two days before a summit where the two sides appear set for fractious talks over their future cooperation.Russia is citing concerns over food hygiene standards in Romania and Bulgaria, which are due to join the EU on Jan. 1, as the reason to impose the EU-wide ban, a spokesman for the European Commission said.
Russia informed the commission "of their intention to ban EU animal product exports" starting Jan. 1 in a letter two weeks ago, spokesman Philip Tod said in Brussels.
The ban would affect all meat, fish and dairy products, which account for $2.2 billion in EU exports to Russia annually.
The Helsinki summit has already been clouded by Poland's refusal to agree to starting talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Russia.
The talks come amid an increasing EU-Russia divide over energy policy, as Russia continues to reject EU calls for it to adopt an Energy Charter Treaty that would open its pipeline network to third-party access and promote greater competition.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated the country's position Wednesday, saying in televised remarks that Russia had no intention of ratifying the treaty because of the flaws inherent in it.
Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin's top EU envoy, said in televised remarks Wednesday that Moscow would ratify the treaty "neither today nor tomorrow," and that energy would be a priority at Friday's summit.
Poland insists it will not drop its veto until Russia lifts a yearlong ban on Polish food imports and ratifies the Energy Charter Treaty. Talks on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement need the approval of all 25 EU members to begin.
Yastrzhembsky said the ban on Polish meat imports was due to licensing violations connected to non-Polish producers.
"This is a purely internal matter for the EU," he said, referring to Poland's veto.
The EU's step to publicize the Russian threat which came in a letter dated Nov. 3 seemed to indicate that tough talks lay ahead.
"We would not consider a ban in any way justifiable, as we have taken precautions that no at-risk products would be allowed to circulate within the single market," Tod, the EU spokesman, said by telephone late Wednesday.
A spokesman for the Agriculture Ministry's veterinary watchdog disagreed.
"The European Union decided to include Bulgaria and Romania [as new members], but these countries are unsafe in the sense of veterinary quality," the spokesman said, RIA-Novosti reported. "The movement of goods within the European Union is unrestricted."
The embargo threat is an attempt by Russia to ensure a tough negotiating position on sensitive energy talks during the upcoming summit, said Alexander Rahr, program director of the Hamburg, Germany-based Korber Center for Russia and CIS Affairs.
"This threat is a means to force the EU to somehow take a more negotiable position toward Russian energy," Rahr said. "This is a warning sign of how difficult the talks will be."
Brussels recently dropped its insistence that Russia ratify the Energy Charter Treaty before the start of talks on the new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which would spell out EU-Russia relations on everything from visa to trade regimes. Talks on the treaty will instead be a part of the negotiations. Yet, Poland has refused to budge so far.
President Vladimir Putin issued a thinly veiled warning to Poland and to other Eastern European countries, which are traditionally more suspicious of Russia than their western neighbors that they risked splitting Europe with their opposition.
"Future talks should not deteriorate into an exchange of complaints," Putin wrote in an op-ed piece published Wednesday in the Financial Times.
"Those who warn of the danger of Europe becoming dependent on Russia see Russia-EU relations in black and white and try to fit them into the obsolete mold of 'friend or foe.' Such stereotypes have little in common with reality, but their persistent influence on political thinking and practice runs the risk of creating fresh divisions in Europe," Putin wrote.
Russia banned imports of Polish meat in November last year over hygiene concerns. Poland argued that the ban was a politically motivated response to Warsaw's support for Ukraine's Orange Revolution.
Russia has also played the hygiene card over other sensitive issues banning U.S. chicken and pork imports during tough bilateral negotiations with Washington on its World Trade Organization bid and halting imports of Georgian goods and Moldovan wine as those countries turn Westward.
Tod, the spokesman, said the EU had addressed Russia's concerns in a Nov. 15 letter to the Agriculture Ministry, but had yet to receive a response.
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