Poland Gives Russia Bad Rap On Polish Meat Ban

Classified Polnews

Contrary to the popular impression encouraged by Poland's Government, Russia has not banned Polish meat but meat exported from Poland. From the beginning, Russia has said that the ban was in place because of Poland being a source of low quality meat delivered from third countries and not because Polish meat was bad.

Polish Meat On The Hoof

There are many references to the reason for the ban that seem to be ignored when reporting on the issue.

Russia banned Polish meat imports on November 10, 2005 because of the frequent "flagrant violations of Russian veterinary requirements" and "counterfeit products," according to the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight. FACTBOX: Russia slaps food import bans

Russia's Putin even commented on it when discussing the current row. He explicitly said the problem was not with Polish meat but with meat that was being shipped through Poland. See Polish Meat Ban Self-inflicted

But Poland has chosen to spin the meat ban as being politically motivated and has been talking about Polish meat being good rather than Polish law enforcement being bad.

Poland has never addressed the issue of its inability to control the issuance of false veterinary certificates that allows low quality meat imported to Poland from third countries to leave Poland and get into Russia.

Poland has not acknowledged that it has a problem with the issuance of Veterinary Certificates that it either cannot or does not want to control.

The Veterinary Certificates are under the control of the Minister Of Agriculture. The Ministry has not made the public aware of its efforts, if any, to solve the certificate problem but rather has issued several statements indicating that the ban would be lifted. And it has not been lifted.

Russia is now taking a different approach to stopping contraband meat from getting into Russia from Poland. Itar Tass reported:

"The Russian government will make a list of all meat importers, a participant in the Friday conference on the regulation of meat imports told Itar-Tass.
The conference was chaired by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

A considerable amount of meat deliveries from Poland is contraband, and the formula of such deliveries will be thoroughly investigated, the source said. He said they did not discuss the meat import problem between Russia and Poland, but the government pledged to draft additional measures for the suppression of meat contraband.

"The inability of customs offices to ensure the appropriate account and control over all supplies has become obvious. That is why, the statistics cited by European, Polish and Russian experts differs so much," he said. "Despite all the restrictions, the actual delivers are much larger, and the meat is of poor quality." " Russian govt to register all meat importers

Russia has apparently acknowledged that his has a problem with its customs offices.

But Poland has not acknowledged that it has any problems and continues to blame Russia for the ban. And it has not announced what it is doing to cooperate with Russia to solve the problem.

Russia is simply being demonized for trying to close its borders to contraband, low quality meat coming from third countries via Poland.