Russia says to lift ban on EU vegetables from Aug 9

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will lift its ban on raw vegetables from all European Union countries starting on Tuesday, August 9, the head of the country's consumer watchdog was cited by Russian news agencies as saying on Monday.

Russia banned imports of raw vegetables from the European Union on June 2 due to a deadly E.coli outbreak. Moscow later agreed to drop the ban provided it received safety guarantees and has since allowed imports from some EU nations.

The EU, which exported about 600 million euros ($850 million) worth of vegetables to Russia last year, had said the blanket ban was not scientifically justified.

"I took a decision to lift all the restrictions on imports of vegetables from the European Union from Tuesday, August 9," Interfax news agency quoted consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor chief Gennady Onishchenko as saying.

"On top of that a special regime which required an issuance of special certificates for each shipment of vegetables is also being lifted," Onishchenko was quoted as saying.

The blanket ban strained Russia's relationship with the EU, its biggest trading partner, at a time when the country is seeking to complete its negotiations to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).

(Writing by Gleb Bryanski, editing by Gareth Jones)

View the original article here

Russia lifts ban on EU vegetables

Russia signed an agreement with the European Union on Wednesday to resume the import of?EU vegetables, possibly by the end of this week.

Russia blocked imports of fresh European vegetables after they were blamed for a deadly E.coli outbreak which struck Germany last month.

"Following today's agreement, I now expect a swift resumption of the EU's exports to Russia," EU Health Commissioner John Dalli said in a statement.

"Both sides have shown good will to make sure that this incident is now behind us," he added.

The European Commission announced that a deal to end the ban had been signed in Moscow during a visit by a high-level Brussels delegation.? The agreement does, however, include a number of stipulations.

Safety provisions

For a limited time, all European vegetables exported to Russia must be accompanied by certificates stating the origin of the product and an assurance that it doesn't carry the E.coli bacteria strain.

Bildunterschrift: Grosansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: ?Earlier this month, President Medvedev promised to lift the ban if his demands were met Brussels must also provide Moscow with a list of official bodies and laboratories authorized to issue the food safety certificates.

"Everything depends on them," Gennady Onishchenko, head of Russia's state consumer protection watchdog, told Reuters.

It was agreed, however, that these conditions would be lifted once ten days had passsed without any new reports of human cases linked to the E.coli strain.

The Netherlands, Poland and Belgium already have these systems in place and are expected to resume exports by the end of the week.

Trading accusations

The source of the E.coli outbreak, which claimed the lives of more than three dozen people, initially puzzled German authorities.

The uncertainty prompted Moscow to issue a blanket ban on all vegetables.??This angered the EU which accused Russia of taking too long to resume imports, arguing that such a ban was not scientifically justifiable.

In return, Moscow criticized the EU for failing to locate the source of the infection.

The outbreak has since been traced to contaminated German bean sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony.

Last year, the EU exported about 600 million euros ($862

million) worth of vegetables to Russia.

Author: Charlotte Chelsom-Pill (Reuters, dpa)

Editor: Susan Houlton

View the original article here

EU, Russia settle fight over vegetables exports

On Wednesday June 22, 2011, 7:14 am EDT

BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Union will be able to resume vegetable exports to Russia after the two sides settled their dispute over the handling of the deadly E. coli outbreak in Germany.

Russia banned imports of EU vegetables early this month to try to stop the outbreak spreading east, a move the EU called disproportionate and unnecessary.

Wednesday's decision will allow EU member states to immediately resume exports if they can show their produce is free from the deadly bacteria that caused a major health scare in Germany.

Ten days after no new cases are reported in EU member states, full exports can resume without special certification.

View the original article here

EU says Russia signs deal to end vegetable trade ban

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

EU and Russia reach agreement to resume trade of vegetables

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Russia to lift EU vegetables ban: European Commission

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union executive Wednesday insisted Russia will immediately lift a costly ban slapped on EU vegetables due to a deadly E.cola outbreak, brushing aside counter-claims in Moscow.

"I can confirm exports will resume from tomorrow from Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland," European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent told AFP.

The EU spokesman spoke after the head of Russia's consumer protection watchdog said an EU announcement of an imminent end to the ban, which affects 25 percent of Europe's total vegetable exports, was "exaggerated".

"As far as the claim that it will happen immediately, these rumours are exaggerated," Rospotrebnadzor chief Gennady Onishchenko told the Interfax news agency after a Moscow round of negotiations aimed at ending the ban.

Russia introduced its embargo on June 2 after the E. coli outbreak in Germany. Amid outrage from Europe's fruit and vegetable farmers, the two sides agreed at a June 10 summit to move toward a certification system, paving the wave to a resumption of trade.

About a fifth of Russia's vegetable imports come from the 27-nation bloc.

Europe's vegetable exports to Russia bring in 600 million euros a year, mainly from Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Belgium.

Vincent earlier said an agreement had been signed during the morning between the EU and Russia.

"We are heading towards an immediate resumption of exports of European vegetables," he said.

"Exports will be able to resume this week, maybe tomorrow," he added.

The EU would supply Russian authorities "temporarily" with laboratory "surveillance and verification" certificates detailing that the products were safe and were not carriers of the deadly bacteria.

Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland have already put E.coli 104 monitoring systems in place with certificates ready for their vegetables.

Text and Picture Copyright 2011 AFP. All other Copyright 2011 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.

View the original article here

EU, Russia in poisonous vegetable row over costly ban

{"s" : "OMXR.EX,^REURTRUSD","k" : "a00,a50,b00,b60,c10,g00,h00,l10,p20,t10,v00","o" : "","j" : ""} Christian Spillmann, 17:58, Wednesday 22 June 2011

The EU and Russia (EUREX: OMXR.EX - news) locked horns Wednesday over Moscow's costly ban on European vegetables with Brussels announcing an imminent end to the embargo that was swiftly denied by Russia.

Russia's three-week old ban on EU vegetables due to fears of contamination from Germany's deadly E.coli outbreak would be lifted "this week, or even tomorrow", said a spokesman for the EU's executive, the European Commission.

"An agreement was signed this morning between the EU and the Russian Federation. We are heading towards an immediate resumption of exports of European vegetables," said Frederic Vincent, spokesman for the health commissioner.

"Exports will be able to resume this week, or even tomorrow," he added.

But moments later in Moscow, the head of Russia's consumer protection watchdog threw doubt on the end of the ban affecting 25 percent of Europe (Chicago Options: ^REURTRUSD - news) 's vegetable exports.

"As far as the claim that it will happen immediately, these rumours are exaggerated," Rospotrebnadzor chief Gennady Onishchenko told the Interfax news agency after a Moscow round of negotiations aimed at ending the ban.

"We are introducing a special regime. No embargo has been lifted," he separately told the RIA Novosti news agency.

Asked to comment on Moscow's position, Vincent told AFP: "I can confirm exports will resume from tomorrow from Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland."

Russia slapped an embargo on fresh EU produce on June 2, amid the E. coli outbreak in Germany. As outrage mounted among Europe's fruit and vegetable farmers, the two sides agreed at a June 10 summit to move toward a certification system, paving the way for a resumption of trade.

About a fifth of Russia's vegetable imports come from the 27-nation bloc.

Europe's vegetable exports to Russia bring in 600 million euros ($860 million) a year, mainly from Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Belgium.

Vincent said that under an EU-Russia accord struck early Wednesday, the EU would supply Russian authorities "temporarily" with laboratory "surveillance and verification" papers to certify the products did not carry the deadly bacterium.

Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland have already put in place an E.coli monitoring and certification system.

The European Commission will transmit to Russia's health authorities "the names of the relevant national authorities competent to sign a certificate that must be stamped on exports for Russia, and the names of the national laboratories accredited to monitor the vegetables," the commission said.

The certification system will be a temporary measure kept in place until 10 days after the last human case of E.coli is reported in the EU.

In Moscow, Onishchenko said the two sides had reaffirmed the principles agreed by European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and President Dmitry Medvedev at a June 10 summit.

The two sides since have struggled to pin down the details since that meeting, and Russia said imports would remain suspended until all safety concerns were resolved.

Onishchenko said Russia and the EU still needed to agree on a list of European laboratories whose food testing standards meet Moscow's requirements.

"Everything depends on when they submit the lab list to us," Onishchenko said.

"Then we will resume" imports, he added.

View the original article here

Russia bans EU vegetables due to E.coli fears

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia banned imports of raw vegetables from the European Union on Thursday because of a deadly E.coli outbreak centered in Germany, Russian media cited the head of the consumer protection agency as saying.

"A ban on the import of fresh vegetables from EU countries takes effect from this morning," Rospotrebnadzor head Gennady Onishchenko said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia had already banned imports of vegetables from Germany and Spain over the outbreak, which has killed at least 16 people and made more than 1,500 others ill in eight European countries. Its source is unknown.

Onishchenko said his agency had issued an order on the ban to Russia's customs service and also ordered raw vegetables from the EU removed from store shelves, Interfax reported. He urged Russians to be alert and to eat domestically grown vegetables

"We are imposing a ban because the situation has not been brought under control in a month. The sources of the infection and factors in its spread have not been established," state-run RIA quoted Onishchenko as saying.

"The situation has worsened sharply in recent days, and so we are forced to take these extremely unpopular measures."

The German disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 365 new E.coli cases on Wednesday, a quarter of them involving a life-threatening complication of a type of E. coli known as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC).

EU officials said three cases had also been reported in the United States, adding that most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently travelled to the country.

EU Health Commissioner John Dalli, however, said the number of new cases appeared to be in decline.

Onishchenko said the deaths caused by the outbreak "demonstrate that the much-praised European sanitary legislation, which Russia is being urged to adopt, does not work," Interfax reported.

(Reporting by Steve Gutterman; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Jon Boyle)

View the original article here

Russia bans EU vegetables over E.coli, EU protests

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia banned imports of fresh vegetables from the European Union Thursday, accusing Brussels of sowing chaos by failing to give sufficient information about a deadly E.coli outbreak.

The European Commission said Moscow's move was disproportionate. The outbreak has killed 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill, and food poisoning is spreading from Germany across Europe.

Russia extended a ban on German and Spanish fresh vegetables to cover the European Union because it said Moscow had not been given proper information on the situation despite repeated requests. The source of the infection is still unclear.

"The kind of things that have been happening in the EU for a whole month do not even happen in African countries," Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, told Reuters by telephone.

"I would call the action of the EU health regulators and the other European bodies responsible for this disgrace unprofessional and irresponsible," said Onishchenko.

The European Commission urged Russia to end its ban immediately.

"The European Commission protested to the Russian Federation this afternoon against the Russian ban imposed earlier today on all EU vegetable exports to Russia, and requested the immediate withdrawal of the measure," the EU executive said in a statement.

European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said earlier that the EU Health Commission John Dalli would write to Moscow to express their objections.

The ban comes a week before Russia, whose leaders have often accused Europe and the United States of trying to force their rules on it, hosts EU leaders at a summit in the city of Nizhny Novgorod.

Russia is under pressure from Europe and other trade partners to announce how it will end protectionist measures, including meat import restrictions, as part of its push to join the World Trade Organization this year after an 18-year effort.

Shops in Moscow prepared to dump EU vegetables and consumers expressed a mixture of scorn and pride at the ban, while the foreign ministry quipped that Russian cucumbers were best.

"Every state will protect its market in order not to get these 'gifts', these cucumbers," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.

"As for the quality of cucumbers, I have tried many myself, but I think that those from the Moscow region are the best -- especially the ones from my own garden," he said.

High-end Russian grocery store chain Azbuka Vkusa, which sources more than 40 percent of all its fresh vegetables and fruits from Europe, said it could replace EU produce with Turkish, Azeri and Russian goods.

Toting a shopping basket filled with grapes and fresh vegetables at a store up the street from the Bolshoi Theater, pensioner Vyacheslav Yegorov called the ban "ridiculous."

"I am not afraid of buying vegetables from any country here... This thing will blow over and be forgotten tomorrow."

But another shopper, Natalya Kuzmina, said that imported food is more likely to have been treated with chemicals and that the ban would help domestic farmers.

Russian Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik played down speculation that Russia could face shortages, saying that imports of vegetables are low in the summer and that most cucumbers and tomatoes do not come from EU nations.

European Union countries exported 594 million euros ($853 million) worth of vegetables to Russia last year while EU imports of vegetables from Russia were just 29 million euros, EU data show. It was not clear what proportion of that was raw.

(Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel, Alexander Reshetnikov and Elizabeth Shockman in Moscow; writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Kelland, editing by XXX)

View the original article here

Russia Won’t Lift Ban on EU Vegetables to Enhance Its WTO Bid, Putin Says

 Russia won’t lift a ban on imports of vegetables from Europe, imposed after an E.coli outbreak, to appease the European Union and enhance its bid to join the World Trade Organization, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. Photographer: Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr./Bloomberg

Russia won’t lift a ban on imports of vegetables from Europe, imposed after an E.coli outbreak, to appease the European Union and enhance its bid to join the World Trade Organization, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.

More than 1,600 people across Europe have been infected and 17 have died in the outbreak that started in Germany, according to the World Health Organization. The German government initially said cucumbers from Spain were to blame, though tests failed to confirm this. Spain will seek EU aid to compensate for damage to its cucumber producers.

Russia suspended imports of German and Spanish tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers on May 30 in response to the outbreak and yesterday extended the ban to all EU fresh vegetables. The EU has sought an immediate withdrawal of the Russian ban. The bloc’s envoy in Moscow today said that Russia, the largest economy outside the WTO, could follow its “rules and principles” even now, the Interfax news service reported.

“All the countries of Europe have been quarrelling over these cucumbers and now they’re trying to drag us into it,” Putin told reporters in Sochi today. “The EU says Russia’s decision contradicts the spirit of the WTO, but we can’t poison people because of some spirit.”

Russia is seeking clarification from the EU on the quality of its vegetables, Putin said, adding that he’ll review the grounds for the government’s import ban.

Russia’s consumer-safety watchdog said the government may lift the ban if German and EU authorities inform Russia of the cause of the outbreak and explain how it spread. The EU is involved in “intensive work” to identify the source, Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli said on June 1.

The Russian agency is also monitoring passengers and vehicles that arrive from countries affected by the outbreak.

Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said today that Russia has enough vegetables to meet domestic demand without imports from the EU. The 27-nation bloc accounted for 11 percent of Russian tomato imports and 5 percent of its cucumbers last year, according to the ministry.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ekaterina Shatalova in Sochi at eshatalova@bloomberg.net; Marina Sysoyeva in Moscow msysoyeva@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Sweetman at msweetman@bloomberg.net; Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net

View the original article here

Russia bans EU vegetables over E. coli scare

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia on Thursday banned the import of fresh vegetables from European Union countries because of a deadly bacteria scare, as Germany kept up the hunt for the source of the bug that has killed 17 people.

Announcing the ban, Russia's top consumer protection official took the opportunity to slam European Union food safety standards.

"The fresh vegetable import ban affecting all EU countries went into effect this morning," consumer protection agency chief Gennady Onishchenko said, Interfax reported.

Vegetables already shipped in from the European Union "will be seized across Russia", Onishchenko said.

Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) can result in full-blown haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) -- a disease that causes bloody diarrhoea and serious liver damage.

The move came as officials in Germany, which has suffered all but one of the 17 fatalities, kept up the hunt for the cause of the deaths. Hundreds more people have fallen sick.

On Monday, Russia banned fresh vegetable shipments from Spain and Germany, warning the sanction could soon be applied to all EU countries if it failed to receive a proper explanation as to how the fatal disease was being spread.

But German and EU officials have been unable to find the cause of the outbreak. After initially blaming it on organic cucumbers imported from Spain, they backed off from that position on Wednesday.

Onishchenko said orders to stop all incoming European vegetable shipments had already been issued to Russian customs authorities.

"I call on people to forgo imported vegetables in favour of domestic products," he said.

Onishchenko, one of Russia's most outspoken health officials, has in the past thrown himself into the centre of political and diplomatic disputes.

On Thursday, he said the latest outbreak proved that Russia's food safety standards were being more professionally observed than those in Europe.

"This shows that Europe's lauded health legislation -- one which Russia is being urged to adopt -- does not work," he said.

"I am far from believing that my colleagues in Germany and other European countries lack professional skills," he said.

"But their hands are tied by an overly-politicised atmosphere."

Onishchenko added that "it was obvious" that Spanish cucumbers could not have been the true cause of the problem.

Russia has been quick in the past to ban the import of products that are also produced locally.

While this has ostensibly been on health grounds, some critics have accused the authorities of using this as a pretext to unfairly back Russian producers.

Spain has threatened to file a suit on behalf of its farmers against German authorities because of their initial claims and may seek financial compensation.

Germany's national disease centre has also admitted that the outbreak started nearly two weeks before the first infections were reported in mid-May.

The European Commission on Wednesday lifted its warning over the Spanish cucumbers after saying it could "not confirm the presence of the specific serotype (O104), which is responsible for the outbreak affecting humans."

View the original article here

Russia Bans EU Vegetables Due to E.coli Outbreak, EU Protests

Russia banned imports of raw vegetables from the European Union on Thursday because of a deadly E.coli outbreak centered in Germany, a move branded "disproportionate" by Brussels.

Grady Coppell | Digital Vision | Getty Images

German health officials said the infections, which have killed 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill in eight European countries, could go on for months and their precise source may never be pinned down.

Russia had already banned imports of vegetables from Germany and Spain due to the outbreak, which German officials originally blamed on contaminated cucumbers imported from Spain before backtracking and apologising to Madrid.

Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, said the deaths caused by the outbreak "demonstrate that the much-praised European sanitary legislation, which Russia is being urged to adopt, does not work," Interfax news agency reported.

The new ban would take effect on Thursday morning, he said, prompting an immediate protest from the European Union.

Spain is threatening legal action over the crisis. It wants compensation for its farmers, who say lost sales are costing them 200 million euros ($287 million) a week and could put 70,000 people out of work.

The European Commission has said it is looking at what it could do about the impact on producers.

Reinhard Burger, head of the German disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), admitted the precise source of the disease outbreak may never be found.

"There still is no indication of a definable source," Burger told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, adding it was too early to say that a plateau of new cases had been reached.

The RKI reported 365 new E.coli cases on Wednesday and said a quarter of them involved a life-threatening complication of a type of E.coli known as Shiga toxin-producing E.coli (STEC).

Authorities gave no fresh figures on Thursday, a public holiday in Germany, but some media reported late on Wednesday that a 17th patient had died.

From Farm to Fork

EU health experts say they have been shocked by the size and severity of the outbreak, which is on a scale never seen before in the region.

Denis Coulombier, head of surveillance and response for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the EU, said studies so far show a strong link between disease symptoms and the consumption of fresh vegetables.

"To have such a high number of severe cases means that probably there was a huge contamination at some junction," he told Reuters in an interview. "That could have been anywhere from the farm to the fork -- in transport, packaging, cleaning, at wholesalers, or retailers -- anywhere along that food chain."

Russia's Onishchenko said it had resorted to a ban because "the situation has not been brought under control in a month."

"The sources of the infection and factors in its spread have not been established," state-run RIA quoted him as saying.

European Union countries exported 594 million euros ($853 million) worth of vegetables to Russia last year while EU imports of vegtables from Russia were just 29 million euros ($42 million), EU data show. It was not clear what proportion of that was raw.

European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said the EU Health Commission John Dalli would be writing to Moscow "within hours" to tell them the ban was disproportionate.

France, Germany and Poland are the biggest exporters of fruits and vegetables to Russia, an EU spokesman said.

The ECDC says cases of E.coli linked with this outbreak have also been reported in Sweden, where one of the deaths occurred, and in Denmark, Britain, Spain and the Netherlands. Most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently traveled to the country.

EU officials have said three cases of E.coli linked to the German outbreak have also been reported in the United States.

E.coli can be passed from person to person but the ECDC's Coulombier said there was no evidence this was happening in any significant numbers in this outbreak. Health experts are recommending strict hygiene measures such as hand washing and thorough cleaning and cooking of food.

View the original article here

Russia bans EU vegetables over outbreak

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia infuriated the European Union on Thursday, by banning fresh vegetables from its 27 member states and faulting its health safety system for the death of 17 people from a lethal bacterial strain.

The sanction was immediately denounced as "disproportionate" by a European Commission spokesman who said Brussels would demand an official explanation from Moscow.

The Rospotrebnadzor watchdog said the ban was going into effect immediately and would remain in force until the European Union explained what caused the 17 mysterious deaths -- all but one of them in Germany.

"There is no evidence of infections going down, while the number of those sick with acute intestinal infection caused by enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) has not been taken into sufficient account," the Russian statement said.

Germany said on Wednesday that its initial assumption that the strain had come from organic Spanish cucumbers was wrong -- an admission that prompted the Spanish prime minister to demand financial compensation.

State television said Russia imports about one-fifth of its vegetables from the European Union and most of the rest from China and Turkey.

But the European Commission said the figure still amounted to more than three billion euros ($4.3 billion) in annual trade.

"It's disproportionate," the European Union's health spokesman Frederic Vincent told AFP, arguing that the ban unfairly punished countries where the vegetable crop was unaffected.

"The commission will write to Russian authorities to demand an explanation. This represents between three and four billion euros in European products exported each year," he said.

The Russian consumer watchdog's chief Gennady Onishchenko -- a man known to throw himself in the centre of political and diplomatic disputes -- said the outbreak revealed faults in the common European food safety system.

"This shows that Europe's lauded health legislation -- one which Russia is being urged to adopt -- does not work," Onishchenko was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency

"I am far from believing that my colleagues in Germany and other European countries lack professional skills," he said.

"But their hands are tied by an overly-politicised atmosphere."

Onishchenko added "it was obvious" that Spanish cucumbers could not have been the true cause of the problem.

Russia has been quick in the past to ban the import of products that are also produced locally.

It has scuffled with the United States over chicken part shipments and banned wine and other imports from Georgia and Moldova during times of diplomatic tension with those two former Soviet republics.

Critics of Russia's food policies say the bans serve the dual purpose of punishing the country's rivals while at the same time protecting domestic producers.

Russia's western neighbour Belarus said it too was mulling an EU import ban.

"We are carefully following the situation," a source in the ex-Soviet republic's agriculture ministry told the Interfax news agency.

"We have not yet seen our Russia's colleagues' official ban orders," the official said.

View the original article here

Russia bans EU vegetables

Reuters/Moscow

Russia has banned imports of fresh vegetables from the European Union, accusing Brussels of sowing chaos by failing to give sufficient information about a deadly E. coli outbreak.
The European Commission said Moscow’s move was disproportionate. The outbreak has killed 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill, and food poisoning is spreading from Germany across Europe.
Russia extended a ban on German and Spanish fresh vegetables to cover the European Union because it said Moscow had not been given proper information on the situation despite repeated requests.
The source of the infection is still unclear.
“The kind of things that have been happening in the EU for a whole month do not even happen in African countries,” Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, told Reuters by telephone.
“I would call the action of the EU health regulators and the other European bodies responsible for this disgrace unprofessional and irresponsible,” said Onishchenko.
The European Commission urged Russia to end its ban immediately.
“The European Commission protested to the Russian Federation this afternoon against the Russian ban imposed earlier today on all EU vegetable exports to Russia, and requested the immediate withdrawal of the measure,” the EU executive said in a statement.
European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said earlier that the EU Health Commission John Dalli would write to Moscow.
The ban comes a week before Russia, whose leaders have often accused Europe and the US of trying to force their rules on it, hosts EU leaders at a summit in the city of Nizhny Novgorod.
Russia is under pressure from Europe and other trade partners to announce how it will end protectionist measures, including meat import restrictions, as part of its push to join the World Trade Organisation this year after an 18-year effort.
Shops in Moscow prepared to dump EU vegetables and consumers expressed a mixture of scorn and pride at the ban, while the foreign ministry quipped that local cucumbers were best.
“Every state will protect its market in order not to get these ‘gifts’, these cucumbers,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.
“As for the quality of cucumbers, I have tried many myself, but I think that those from the Moscow region are the best – especially the ones from my own garden,” he said.
High-end Russian grocery store chain Azbuka Vkusa, which sources more than 40% of all its fresh vegetables and fruits from Europe, said that it could replace EU produce with Turkish, Azeri and Russian goods.
Toting a shopping basket filled with grapes and fresh vegetables at a store up the street from the Bolshoi Theatre, Vyacheslav Yegorov called the ban “ridiculous”. “I am not afraid of buying vegetables from any country here... This thing will blow over and be forgotten tomorrow.”
But another shopper, Natalya Kuzmina, said that imported food is more likely to have been treated with chemicals and that the ban would help domestic farmers.
Russian Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik played down speculation that Russia could face shortages, saying that imports of vegetables are low in the summer and that most cucumbers and tomatoes do not come from EU nations.
European Union countries exported 594mn euros ($853mn) worth of vegetables to Russia last year while EU imports of vegetables from Russia were just 29mn euros, EU data show. It was not clear what proportion of that was raw.

View the original article here

Russia bans German, Spanish vegetables

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia on Monday banned the import of all vegetables from Germany and Spain and warned the sanction could soon be applied to the rest of Europe because of the deadly E. coli bacteria scare.

The country's consumer consumer protection watchdog said in a statement that the ban covered "raw vegetables" including tomatoes, cucumbers and salad produced in Germany and Spain.

"This measure stems from the outbreak in Germany of the acute intestinal infection caused by Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC)," the agency statement statement said.

EHEC can result in full-blown haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a disease that causes bloody diarrhoea and serious liver damage and which can result in death.

German officials suspect the deadly strain, which has already killed 12 people, may have come from organic cucumbers imported from Spain.

Russia has been quick on past occasions to ban the import of products produced locally for ostensibly health-related reasons -- moves that have seen critics accuse the authorities of unfairly helping local producers.

The consumer protection agency said the measure could soon be expanded to include all European Union countries if Russia failed to receives a sufficient explanation as to how the fatal disease was being spread.

"Moreover, in the coming hours, a decision may be taken to ban the import to or sale in Russia of vegetables produced in all EU countries," the Russian statement said.

The agency chief's Gennady Onishchenko urged Russians to eat only locally-grown greens, adding that all vegetables already imported from Germany and Spain would be seized.

"We are calling on the population not to purchase fresh vegetables from Germany and Spain," Interfax quoted Onishchenko as saying. "Let them purchase domestic products."

View the original article here

Russia Bans EU Vegetables Due to E.coli Outbreak

Russia banned imports of raw vegetables from the European Union on Thursday because of a deadly E.coli outbreak centered in Germany, a move branded "disproportionate" by Brussels.

Grady Coppell | Digital Vision | Getty Images

German health officials said the infections, which have killed 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill in eight European countries, could go on for months and their precise source may never be pinned down.

Russia had already banned imports of vegetables from Germany and Spain due to the outbreak, which German officials originally blamed on contaminated cucumbers imported from Spain before backtracking and apologising to Madrid.

Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, said the deaths caused by the outbreak "demonstrate that the much-praised European sanitary legislation, which Russia is being urged to adopt, does not work," Interfax news agency reported.

The new ban would take effect on Thursday morning, he said, prompting an immediate protest from the European Union.

Spain is threatening legal action over the crisis. It wants compensation for its farmers, who say lost sales are costing them 200 million euros ($287 million) a week and could put 70,000 people out of work.

The European Commission has said it is looking at what it could do about the impact on producers.

Reinhard Burger, head of the German disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), admitted the precise source of the disease outbreak may never be found.

"There still is no indication of a definable source," Burger told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, adding it was too early to say that a plateau of new cases had been reached.

The RKI reported 365 new E.coli cases on Wednesday and said a quarter of them involved a life-threatening complication of a type of E.coli known as Shiga toxin-producing E.coli (STEC).

Authorities gave no fresh figures on Thursday, a public holiday in Germany, but some media reported late on Wednesday that a 17th patient had died.

From Farm to Fork

EU health experts say they have been shocked by the size and severity of the outbreak, which is on a scale never seen before in the region.

Denis Coulombier, head of surveillance and response for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the EU, said studies so far show a strong link between disease symptoms and the consumption of fresh vegetables.

"To have such a high number of severe cases means that probably there was a huge contamination at some junction," he told Reuters in an interview. "That could have been anywhere from the farm to the fork -- in transport, packaging, cleaning, at wholesalers, or retailers -- anywhere along that food chain."

Russia's Onishchenko said it had resorted to a ban because "the situation has not been brought under control in a month."

"The sources of the infection and factors in its spread have not been established," state-run RIA quoted him as saying.

European Union countries exported 594 million euros ($853 million) worth of vegetables to Russia last year while EU imports of vegtables from Russia were just 29 million euros ($42 million), EU data show. It was not clear what proportion of that was raw.

European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said the EU Health Commission John Dalli would be writing to Moscow "within hours" to tell them the ban was disproportionate.

France, Germany and Poland are the biggest exporters of fruits and vegetables to Russia, an EU spokesman said.

The ECDC says cases of E.coli linked with this outbreak have also been reported in Sweden, where one of the deaths occurred, and in Denmark, Britain, Spain and the Netherlands. Most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently traveled to the country.

EU officials have said three cases of E.coli linked to the German outbreak have also been reported in the United States.

E.coli can be passed from person to person but the ECDC's Coulombier said there was no evidence this was happening in any significant numbers in this outbreak. Health experts are recommending strict hygiene measures such as hand washing and thorough cleaning and cooking of food.

View the original article here

Russia Bans EU Vegetables Over Deadly E. Coli Outbreak

Russia banned imports of raw vegetables from the European Union on Thursday because of a deadly E.coli outbreak centered in Germany, a move branded "disproportionate" by Brussels.

German health officials said the infections, which have killed at least 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill in eight European countries, could go on for months and their precise source may never be pinned down.

Russia had already banned imports of vegetables from Germany and Spain over the outbreak, which German officials originally blamed on contaminated cucumbers imported from Spain before backtracking and apologizing to Madrid.

Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, said the deaths caused by the outbreak "demonstrate that the much-praised European sanitary legislation, which Russia is being urged to adopt, does not work," Interfax news agency reported.
The new ban would take effect on Thursday morning, he said, prompting an immediate protest from the European Union.

Spain is threatening legal action over the crisis. It wants compensation for its farmers, who say lost sales are costing them 200 million euros ($287 million) a week and could put 70,000 people out of work.

The European Commission has said it is looking at what it could do about the impact on producers.

Reinhard Burger, head of German disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), admitted the precise source of the disease outbreak may never be found.

"There still is no indication of a definable source," Burger told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, adding it was too early to say that a plateau of new cases had been reached.

The RKI reported 365 new E.coli cases on Wednesday and said a quarter of them involved a life-threatening complication of a type of E.coli known as Shiga toxin-producing E.coli (STEC).

Authorities gave no fresh figures on Thursday, a public holiday in Germany, but some media reported late on Wednesday that a 17th patient had died.

FROM FARM TO FORK

EU health experts say they have been shocked by the size and severity of the outbreak, which is on a scale never seen before in the region.

Denis Coulombier, head of surveillance and response for the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the EU, said studies so far show a strong link between disease symptoms and the consumption of fresh vegetables.

"To have such a high number of severe cases means that probably there was a huge contamination at some junction," he told Reuters in an interview. "That could have been anywhere from the farm to the fork — in transport, packaging, cleaning, at wholesalers, or retailers — anywhere along that food chain."

Russia's Onishchenko said it had resorted to a ban because "the situation has not been brought under control in a month."

"The sources of the infection and factors in its spread have not been established," state-run RIA quoted him as saying.

European Union countries exported 594 million euros ($853 million) worth of vegetables to Russia last year while EU imports of vegetables from Russia were just 29 million euros, EU data show. It was not clear what proportion of that was raw.

European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said the EU Health Commission John Dalli would be writing to Moscow "within hours" to tell them the ban was disproportionate.

France, Germany and Poland are the biggest exporters of fruits and vegetables to Russia, an EU spokesman said.

The ECDC says cases of E.coli linked with this outbreak have also been reported in Sweden, where one of the deaths occurred, and in Denmark, Britain, Spain and the Netherlands. Most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently travelled to the country.

EU officials have said three cases of E.coli linked to the German outbreak have also been reported in the United States.

E.coli can be passed from person to person but the ECDC's Coulombier said there was no evidence this was happening in any significant numbers in this outbreak. Health experts are recommending strict hygiene measures such as hand washing and thorough cleaning and cooking of food.

View the original article here

Putin Won’t ‘Poison’ Russia With EU Vegetables for WTO Bid

June 03, 2011, 11:54 AM EDT By Ekaterina Shatalova and Marina Sysoyeva

(Updates with comment from Putin in fourth paragraph.)

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Russia won’t lift a ban on imports of vegetables from Europe, imposed after an E.coli outbreak, to appease the European Union and enhance its bid to join the World Trade Organization, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.

More than 1,600 people across Europe have been infected and 17 have died in the outbreak that started in Germany, according to the World Health Organization. The German government initially said cucumbers from Spain were to blame, though tests failed to confirm this. Spain will seek EU aid to compensate for damage to its cucumber producers.

Russia suspended imports of German and Spanish tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers on May 30 in response to the outbreak and yesterday extended the ban to all EU fresh vegetables. The EU has sought an immediate withdrawal of the Russian ban. The bloc’s envoy in Moscow today said that Russia, the largest economy outside the WTO, could follow its “rules and principles” even now, the Interfax news service reported.

“All the countries of Europe have been quarrelling over these cucumbers and now they’re trying to drag us into it,” Putin told reporters in Sochi today. “The EU says Russia’s decision contradicts the spirit of the WTO, but we can’t poison people because of some spirit.”

Russia is seeking clarification from the EU on the quality of its vegetables, Putin said, adding that he’ll review the grounds for the government’s import ban.

‘Intensive Work’

Russia’s consumer-safety watchdog said the government may lift the ban if German and EU authorities inform Russia of the cause of the outbreak and explain how it spread. The EU is involved in “intensive work” to identify the source, Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli said on June 1.

The Russian agency is also monitoring passengers and vehicles that arrive from countries affected by the outbreak.

Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said today that Russia has enough vegetables to meet domestic demand without imports from the EU. The 27-nation bloc accounted for 11 percent of Russian tomato imports and 5 percent of its cucumbers last year, according to the ministry.

--Editors: Patrick G. Henry, Fergal O’Brien

To contact the reporters on this story: Ekaterina Shatalova in Sochi at eshatalova@bloomberg.net; Marina Sysoyeva in Moscow msysoyeva@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Sweetman at msweetman@bloomberg.net; Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net

View the original article here