Spanish sector takes stock after decade of Russian embargo

This month marks ten years since the Russian Federation imposed an embargo on the import of fresh fruits and vegetables from the European Union, closing off Spain’s biggest export market outside of the EU.

A decade on, the blockade continues to significantly affect the industry, which has been unable to find alternative markets capable of absorbing the more than 230,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables that were exported annually to Russia prior to the ban.

In 2013, the last year before the veto, Spain directly exported a total of 230,729 tonnes of fruits and vegetables to Russia, with stonefruit – primarily peaches and nectarines – leading the charge. A total of 35,250 tonnes of peaches and 29,525 tonnes of nectarines were shipped to Russia in that year.

However, the true export volume is likely to be much higher, given that a significant proportion of produce was re-exported from other European countries such as France, the Netherlands and Poland.

According to Spanish export federation Fepex, the compensatory measures implemented by the European Commission in the first years after the veto, consisting mainly of aid for the withdrawal of products, have not been sufficient to make up for the loss of the Russian market.

“No third country export markets have compensated for what is no longer exported to Russia,” Fepex said, noting that the situation has been compounded by the continued decline in exports to non-European markets. Currently, shipments of fruit and vegetables outside of Europe make up just 3 per cent of Spain’s total export volume, with exports falling 12 per cent in 2023 to 352,759 tonnes.

Fepex said this panorama poses serious challenges for the Spanish fruit and vegetable sector, which continues to look for solutions to compensate for a decade of significant losses in a key market.