Translated material
Make it before the summit with Russia
Finns solve Poland's problems
On the eve of the meeting of the leaders of Russia and the European Union on November 24 in Helsinki, Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen is trying to resolve the conflict between Poland and Russia. Finland holds the presidency of the European Union until the end of the year, of which Poland is also a member. On Saturday, the Finnish prime minister, after a conversation in Warsaw with his Polish counterpart Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said optimistically: “There are signs of finding a solution. I laid out everything necessary for this on the table and left them (Poles - Ed. ) think".Warsaw, by blocking the start of EU negotiations with Russia on a basic partnership agreement at the summit scheduled for November 24 in Helsinki, hoped to force Moscow to lift the ban on the supply of its agricultural products to Russia. It was introduced due to violations of Russian phyto-sanitary and customs standards by Polish suppliers.
Experts from the European Commission are looking into violations in Warsaw. Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas also offered mediation to Poland. But Russia’s permanent representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, is convinced that the ban on the import of Polish products will be lifted “not before Poland eliminates the reasons that caused it.” He clarified that there is “no politics” in the problem, but “there is the negligence of the Polish sanitary authorities and the abuses of Polish exporters.”
The EU may soon face another “meat problem” - restrictions on meat imports to Russia. To avoid this, Mr. Chizhov believes, Brussels must take “adequate measures” to separate Bulgarian pork infected with the “blue tongue” virus (an infection of ruminants that is not dangerous to humans, but causes death in livestock - Ed. ) from “meat exports EU as a whole." Bulgaria is not yet a member of the European Union, but, like Romania, will join on January 1, 2007. Supplies of pork from Romania and Bulgaria are now prohibited not only to Russia, but also to United Europe.