Moscow banned Polish meat imports in November 2005, citing food safety concerns and numerous attempts to export banned produce with falsified health safety certificates. It followed up with a complete ban on agricultural products.
"Russian inspectors will check the companies that offer supplies of agricultural produce to Russia and the food safety measures applied to exported goods," said Alexey Alekseyenko, a spokesman for Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight.
He said a team of Russian experts will spend 15 days in Poland, mainly auditing the firms that produce vegetables and fruits, and will compile a list of companies that will be allowed to export their produce to Russia.
Alekseyenko also said that a similar team of Russian food safety experts had been checking Polish companies producing meat products since February 6 with the same purpose.
Relations between Russia and Poland, a former Communist Bloc country that joined the EU in May 2004, have deteriorated dramatically in the past few years. A string of recent diplomatic spats has increased mutual distrust between the two former allies, prompting many politicians in Warsaw to conclude that the Kremlin is using the embargo on Polish imports as a political weapon.
Russia's ban on meat and other agricultural imports from Poland led the EU newcomer to veto the launch of negotiations late last year on a new trade and energy cooperation deal between Moscow and Brussels to replace the current partnership accord, which expires at the end of 2007.
European Commission officials have described Russia's trade ban as unjustified and disproportionate, although they admitted that Poland had violated European meat export standards on several occasions.
