Russian officials and top ranking European Union representatives are holding talks today (10 June) on how to lift the county’s two week-old ban on European vegetable imports.
With the EU having confirmed that German-produced beansprouts were the source of a deadly E.coli outbreak that has killed 29 people and hospitalised 2,900 others, officials are now applying pressure to Russia in the hope of restarting lucrative exports to the country.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev is meeting a top level European delegation, including EU president Herman van Rompuy and European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, 250 miles east of Moscow.
Speaking to Associated Press, Russian sanitary official Gennady Onishchenko said that both sides were closer to reaching an agreement on ending the ban after a first round of talks.
Onishchenko told the news agency the EU had offered to provide food safety certificates for specific vegetable imports from member states to enable entry to Russia.
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