Int'l - EU reported to end ban Russian poultry imports
Published:September 23, 2005
By:JustFood.com
Russia has been given permission to resume poultry exports to EU countries, the head of the Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control Service (Rosselkhoznadzor) Sergei Dankvert told the Interfax news agency.
The European Commission banned poultry exports from Russia on 17 August due to the bird flu outbreak in the central and eastern parts of the country.
Dankvert said that representatives of EU veterinary services on Tuesday evening voted in favour of introducing a system in which poultry exports would not banned from the country as a whole, but just from the regions where bird flu was registered, the agency reported.
"This is a very important decision since it opens the door not just for poultry deliveries, but also provides the possibility to export Russian grain to EU countries," Dankvert said. He said that when bird flu is registered in an exporting country, an importing country can ban imports of meat and grain, in particular feed grain, from that country as a safety measure.
