EU Lodges WTO Challenge against Russia Pork Import Ban

The EU has challenged Russia’s ban on imported pork products, filing a formal complaint at the WTO on Tuesday. The move comes at a time of heightened bilateral tensions between the two sides, due both to the Ukrainian crisis and to other recent trade disagreements.

At issue in the WTO complaint (DS475) is a blanket ban that Russia imposed in January on imports of pigs, fresh pork, and certain pig products from the 28-nation EU. Moscow said that the measure was necessary due to cases found in Lithuania and Poland - both EU member states - of African swine fever (ASF) in wild boar.

EU officials say that the ban is unjustified, given that there have only been four ASF cases in those countries, specifically at their border with Belarus. “Russia’s blanket ban on European pork is clearly disproportionate and goes against WTO rules,” said EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht.

Furthermore, EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg said, Brussels has already implemented various WTO-compliant control measures aimed at containing the swine fever virus - “which most probably comes from Russia itself.” Brussels says that there have been over 600 cases of ASF in Russian wild boar since 2007, which it suggests could have caused the infection to spread to neighbouring Belarus, and then to Lithuania and Poland.

The EU had previously submitted a regionalisation proposal that would allow pig exports from all parts of the bloc, except the affected areas. That proposal was rejected by Moscow, however, which says that the blanket ban is necessary until the EU can show it is fully free of the disease, particularly given Russia’s own difficulties in containing the disease within its own borders.

While ASF cannot be spread to humans, the highly-contagious disease can be lethal for pigs, and has no treatment or vaccine, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health. Russia receives a quarter of the EU’s pork exports, valued at €1.4 billion last year.