Xinhua, Brussels :
The European Union (EU) Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development said Friday the EU has new and modernized tools to stand by its member states to tackle the ban imposed by Russia on EU food and agricultural exports.
“I understand the concern expressed in the EU farming sector. I want to underline that the Common Agricultural Policy has new and modernised tools to stand by them, as soon as it is needed, including our crisis reserve, which is already available now,” Commissioner Dacian Ciolos said in a statement.
He also expressed confidence that EU’s resilient farm sector will reorient rapidly towards new markets and opportunities. “But there must be support to help this transition happen smoothly. This requires a joined up, European response,” he added.
Russia announced Thursday it will ban fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, milk and dairy imports from the United States, the EU, Australia, Canada and Norway. The measures were taken in retaliation for the western sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.
EC pledges “immediate action” to mitigate Russian sanctions’ impact: The European Commission has pledged to take “immediate action” to mitigate the impact of Russian imposed import ban on food and agricultural products from the European Union, Austrian Minister of Agriculture Andrae Rupprechter confirmed yesterday.
The minister said he had spoken to European Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos via telephone, who assured him the Commission would take “immediate action.”
Affected markets would have to be relieved with funds taken from an agricultural crisis reserve, Rupprechter said. Such measures are expected to be introduced at a Management Committee meeting next week.
Russia on Thursday banned imports of fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, milk and dairy products from the United States, the EU, Australia, Canada and Norway in response to Western sanctions.
Total Austrian agricultural exports to Russia amounted to 320 million U.S. dollars in 2013 with pork and dairy exports in particular increasing in recent years.
The import ban imposed by Russia is expected to alone cost Austrian meat exporters up to 1.3 million dollars a week.
Russia confirms Iceland not on EU sanction list: The embassy of Russia to Iceland confirmed that Iceland was not on Russia’s sanction list, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service reported Friday.
Alexey V. Shadskiy, Counsellor of the Russian embassy in Iceland, confirmed Iceland was not on Russia’s sanction list, but did not say why.
The Russian government on Thursday imposed a one-year ban on imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United States and Norway.
Icelandic Foreign Minister Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson has said he did not know why Iceland was not on Russia’s sanction list.
“It is too early to say whether we are in danger of being on that list,” said Sveinsson.
“It is clear Russia took measures against some selected nations. Of course, the risk exists, but we have to wait and see how it develops,” he added.
Russian food sanctions to have little effect on British exports: The Russian sanctions on imported foodstuffs from the European Union (EU), the United States and other Western nations will have little effect on Britain, a British economist said Friday.
Neil Shearing, chief emerging market economist at Capital Economics, said that the Russian ban, as it is currently constituted, will last for 12 months and cover a range of foodstuffs, including fruit, dairy, vegetables.
“It essentially means that Russia is not going to be able to import very much fresh food from mainly Europe but also the U.S. and other Western markets like Australia, Canada, and Norway too,” he said.
However, the impact on British exporters to Russia is likely to be very small.
Shearing told Xinhua, “In terms of Europe, and in particular the UK, in aggregate the impact of this is going to be quite small. Russia is an export market for Europe and for European food producers it is quite small. If we look at agriculture this is not going to be a big deal, particularly for the UK-it is tiny.”
British exports of foodstuffs to Russia are small.
In 2013 the largest food and drink exporter by value was the frozen fish sector with 17 million pounds (28.5 million U.S. dollars) of exports.
This was followed by exports of cheese (5.7 million pounds) and coffee (5.3 million pounds).
Shearing said that some EU nations would be hit, “There are one or two countries which do look a bit more exposed. Lithuania is one of those.”
Russia is a large export market for EU foodstuffs. In 2011 Russia bought 21.5 percent of EU vegetables exports and 28 percent of fruit exports.
Such a ban on foodstuffs, imposed after the EU, the United States and other Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over the situation in Ukraine, will have an effect on Russia.
