Moscow imposed an embargo on meat imports from Poland last November over the EU newcomer's alleged violations of veterinary regulations and health concerns. Warsaw vetoed the start of talks on a new Russia-EU cooperation agreement in protest against the move.
"I hope this [the lifting of embargo] will happen soon, within the next few days," Annà Fotygà said. "But as is known, we have to deal with a very difficult partner so I wouldn't want to raise premature expectations."
She said the "meat issue" is being discussed several times a day at a very high level both in Poland and in the European Commission.
President Vladimir Putin said last month that Russia had no complaints against Polish meat, but objected to products of third countries being imported via Poland.
Russia proposed separate agreements with individual European Union countries on the import of their meat, as a temporary measure to solve an ongoing dispute with the 25-nation bloc.
The Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Inspection (Rosselkhoznadzor) came up with the proposal due to the EU's failure to provide guarantees of safe meat imports from Bulgaria and Romania.
