"We have agreed to sign a memorandum, and normal supplies of permitted EU products from companies accredited in Russia will continue," Alexei Gordeyev said after talks in Moscow with EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou.
Gordeyev said the sides discussed ways of preventing problems linked with Bulgaria and Romania's EU accession next month, in view of Moscow's restrictions on their meat, on health grounds. Both countries have recently suffered from outbreaks of swine fever.
The minister said the decision to continue meat imports from the 25-nation bloc as normal was taken since both Russia and the European Union have high standards and requirements on the quality of food products.
"We accept the fact that banned products from Romania and Bulgaria will not be supplied [to Russia] via third countries, which are also EU members," the minister said.
Kyprianou said the sides had managed to achieve their goal of ensuring uninterrupted meat supplies from the EU to Russia, but said they had not discussed the resumption of meat imports from EU-member Poland.
Moscow imposed an embargo on meat imports from Poland on November 10, also over health concerns. Warsaw vetoed the start of talks on a new Russia-EU cooperation agreement in late November, in protest against the move. President Vladimir Putin explained that Russia had no claims against Polish meat, but objected to products of third countries being imported via Poland.
