Russia Extends Pork Ban to Britain
Russia has extended its import ban on live pigs and raw pork to include Britain because of fears about the spread of a deadly flu virus, the country`s chief veterinarian said Tuesday, drawing condemnation from the EU.
Nikolai Vlasov, chief of the Agriculture Ministry`s animal and plant health watchdog, told reporters that the ban was a formality, as Britain was not selling pork to Russia because of an earlier ban over foot-and-mouth disease.
The European Commission responded with a letter to Moscow criticizing the ban, further straining relations between the trading partners. "We are contesting the ban and are awaiting the response from Moscow," a spokeswoman for the EU executive told reporters.
But the spokeswoman acknowledged that it would "be difficult" to impose any retaliatory sanctions since Russia is not yet a member of the World Trade Organization.
Previous spats over food safety, notably involving Polish meat, and the imposition of additional tariffs by Moscow on European Union products such as timber and cars have severely hampered Russia`s aspirations to join the global trade body.
"This is typical behavior by Moscow to use food safety as a protectionist measure," an EU diplomat familiar with Russia`s WTO negotiations said.
Earlier Tuesday, the watchdog said it had also banned live pigs and raw pork from the Canadian province of Alberta.
Vlasov said more bans were possible and that they could be applied to entire countries or regions, depending on the velocity with which they divulge information about the discovery and the spread of the virus.
There have been more than 1,100 confirmed cases worldwide of the A/H1N1 virus -- also known as swine flu.
Russia has already banned pigs and raw pork from Spain and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Ontario. Imports of all meat including pork, beef and poultry from Mexico, where the outbreak started, Central American and Caribbean countries and California, New York, South Carolina and Texas have also been stopped.
The watchdog has also halted imports of live pigs and pork not submitted to thermal treatment at 80 degrees Celsius for no less than 30 minutes from Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, New Jersey and Ohio.
The United States and Spain have said the bans are unjustified, as there is no proof that the virus could be transmitted by meat, an argument repeated by the EU on Tuesday.
Major international organizations on Saturday issued a joint statement stressing the safety of pork products.
But Vlasov insisted that the virus, which mixes swine, avian and human strains, was new and that additional studies were necessary to prove that it cannot be transmitted through raw pork.
"If we are convinced that pork is safe, then its imports should be allowed to the Russian market, but now we are not convinced," he said.
He said Russia was well-prepared to fight the virus if it appeared inside the country.
But, he said, there was a danger that the virus could penetrate to Indonesia and Central Africa and mutate there with the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of the virus, also known as bird flu, and trigger a pandemic.
"If these two viruses produce an offspring, which will inherit the worst qualities of its ancestors, then we will find ourselves in a very special situation. Currently, nothing bad is happening," Vlasov said.
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