The European Commission has announced that Russia will lift the ban it imposed on EU vegetable imports in the wake of last month's E coli outbreak.
However, confusion remains over when exactly the blockade will be removed, with EU and Russian officials contradicting each other.
With EU health commissioner John Dalli currently in Russia to discuss the ban's removal with his Russian counterparts, EC officials said they believed exports would return to normal later this week.
According to the Commission, individual member states will have to certify the origin of their vegetable exports to Russia and prove the absence of the H104:O4 strain of E coli strain, which has caused the deaths of around 40 people since the end of May.
EC health spokesperson Frederic Vincent commented: 'We are heading towards an immediate resumption of European vegetables, based on EU certificates that will explain to the Russian authorities that in each EU state there are labs and a surveillance and verification system.'
However, Russian government officials said the flow of goods would only resume once adequate food safety certification had been provided.
Gennady Onishchenko, head of Russia's state consumer protection body, told Reuters Russia would only begin taking vegetable imports from the EU again when Brussels had provided Moscow with a list of official bodies and laboratories authorised to issue food safety certificates.
'Everything depends on them,' he said. 'It does not mean that everything will immediately return to the Russian market.'
No comments yet