Vice-minister: limited importation of Russian vegetables into the EU would block the way to Lithuania | Business

“The main problem is to prevent those goods from entering the European Union. There is already free movement of goods within the European Union and it is already more difficult to control, since border control is not carried out, the main task is to limit the access of these goods to the common market”, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Vytenis Tomkus told LRT radio on Wednesday.

He reminded that in March, Lithuania, together with Latvia, Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic, called on the European Commission (EC) to analyze the possibility of limiting the import of food products of Russian and Belarusian origin into the Community.

The Lithuanian Greenhouse Association announced on Tuesday that Russian-grown vegetables, mainly cucumbers and tomatoes, are entering Lithuania through Belarus and Poland after falsified origin documents.

According to vegetable growers, such production in Lithuania is sold several times cheaper than local or grown in Poland or Latvia.

“The majority of (Russian vegetables – BNS) arrived from Poland already with forged documents, and possibly some of our businessmen do not even know that these are vegetables grown in the Russian Federation, because they arrive already with Polish documents,” the board of the Lithuanian Greenhouse Association told LRT radio on Tuesday chairman Paulius Andriejavas.

The Lithuanian Greenhouse Association stated that it has applied to the Ministry of Agriculture with a request to take steps to stop the import of produce from Russia.

“Our letter even contains photos when the cucumbers are not even hidden, they are packed in boxes on farms grown in the Russian Federation, where both the grower – Russia, the importer – a Belarusian company, and the exporter – Poland are even indicated,” Paulius Andriejavas explained.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture Vytenis Tomkus said that there was no direct import of cucumbers or tomatoes from Russia last year – mainly mushrooms, peas, grain crops – mainly corn were imported from this country.

According to the vice-minister, last year the State Food and Veterinary Service (VMVT) conducted inspections of 245 trade entities and identified seven discrepancies in the labeling of food products, but there were no cucumbers or tomatoes among them.