The harsh reactions of Russian veterinary watchdogs, which slapped bans on meat imports from specific foreign factories, caused a lot of raised eyebrows and hard feelings in the West. Suffice it to recall the "Polish meat" controversy, which lasted for over a year, or the recent statement by the Brazilian government that Russia's moves to block Brazilian meat imports are "inadmissible." Still, even in this complicated context, Moscow insists on a constructive dialogue because ultimatums can only harm mutual trade.
With this in mind, Moscow hosted a two-day meeting of experts from the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight, Russian food quality watchdog, and EU Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General. The participants focused on increasing control over animal products circulation.
Stanislav Zakharov, deputy head of the veterinary department at the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight, told Paul Van Geldorp, who headed the EU delegation, that the flow of illegal and low quality foodstuffs was not subsiding despite the on-going intensive bilateral contacts on various issues, including export fraud. The number of inspected merchandise returns is growing as well.
A new alarming trend has emerged in Europe, where entry documents for meat and meat products are being tampered with illegally. For example, exporters can forge certificates from the producing country, and sometimes the product's destination is changed.
Europe's largest seaports, Hamburg and Rotterdam, have turned into unregulated markets, where products arriving from third countries and subject to inspection are being traded, including those banned from marketing in the EU countries. Sometimes doubtful products are reloaded in neutral waters, which further complicates the situation.
The Russian side presented evidence of such crimes. For example, several containers arriving by sea from Hamburg and Rotterdam have been arrested in St. Petersburg this year. The certificates said there were frozen vegetables inside, but in fact they also contained meat. Russian border guards have prevented several successive attempts to smuggle Chinese pork (over 200 containers in 2005 and 2006) into Russia through Europe. Chinese meat is not allowed in Russia.
Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight inspectors have recently encountered a new type of fraud, as they arrested seven containers of frozen pork of shady origin arriving from Rotterdam and labeled as "frozen green peas" from Poland.
It appears there are no laws to fight this evil in Europe. Russia, too, is hostage to the existing European legislation. The law prohibits the port authorities in Hamburg and Rotterdam to restrict export operations or track down shady transactions involving animal products.
EU experts suggested shyly that the Russian Customs Service might find it useful if customs offices in European ports notified it of all cargoes bound for Russia. But Russian border guards would probably prefer to be informed about reloading and change of destination papers for those cargoes. The Europeans invited their Russian colleagues to visit one of the European ports to study the situation on site.
As a result of the meeting, the EU delegation finally admitted that the existing control system failed to check the inflow of counterfeit foodstuffs into Russia. They also agreed that the 18 types of Russian veterinary certificates with extra-high counterfeit protection helped prevent the forgery of entry documents. The sides agreed to further coordinate and introduce initial draft veterinary certificates for various types of meat products.
They also discussed violations occurring in live cattle trade. An earlier Russia-EU agreement stipulates that cattle can be only imported by companies inspected by both Russian and local veterinary services. One such inspection is underway in Sweden, and two more are planned in Hungary and Latvia. The EU representatives asked their Russian colleagues to conduct veterinary inspections in Britain, Austria and Ireland as soon as possible.
The EU has also decided to hold a joint veterinary inspection with Russian experts in Poland. The EU Directorate General will set the date and notify the Russian side later.
The EU representatives informed the Russian side of their work to harmonize the European law on marketing products subject to inspection with the legislation of Switzerland, which is not a European community member.
The Russian participants discussed the use of TRACES (European Trade Control and Expert System) with Didier Carton, administrator of the EU Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General. They focused on practical aspects of Russian specialists' using TRACES, which helps monitor the flows of such cargoes crossing Europe on their way to Russia.
It is important that Russia is planning to start introducing international norms and standards for ensuring food safety this month. Russia's sanitary, veterinary and phytosanitary laws will be harmonized with international norms within the next 30 months, including the WTO regulations and the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement. A number of Russia's key sanitary labs will be re-equipped and their personnel retrained.
The Russian participants in the meeting said the dialogue was difficult but extremely useful. Russia and Europe cannot effectively fight fraud in international meat trade unless they take steps to meet each other halfway.
Alexei Alekseyenko is official spokesman for the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
