Vegetables from the European Union will face new checks to ensure they are safe to be imported into Russia, the country's sanitary chief said on Wednesday, adding that Russia's ban remained in place.
The European Commission said earlier on Wednesday that it had signed an agreement with Russia to immediately resume European vegetable imports, which had been banned over a European pandemic caused by the E. coli bacteria.
"A special regime will be introduced, but the embargo has not been canceled yet," Gennady Onishchenko, head of Russia's sanitary watchdog, said.
Russia suspended vegetable imports from the European Union early in June due to the outbreak of a highly virulent strain of the E. coli bacteria that killed over 40 people in Europe.
Onishchenko said Russia expected the European Union to provide a list of laboratories that will check vegetable products for E. coli before they are sent to Russia.
He said the European Commission had accepted Russia's terms, which had been formulated at the Russia-EU summit in Nizhny Novgorod earlier this month.
The European Commission said this new system would be lifted if no more deaths are reported in Europe from the bacteria within the next 10 days.
Russia's ban on vegetable imports had sparked criticism from EU officials for going against World Trade Organization policy. Russia pledged to keep the embargo until the source of infection was identified.
