Two days before Greek prime minister visits Moscow to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin on 8 April, Russian experts will visit Greece on 6 April to prepare for a resumption of Greek agricultural products exports to Russia.
Meanwhile, the Greek Energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis wrapped up yesterday his 2 day visit in Moscow where he met his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, and Russian energy giant Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller.
“My meetings, especially those withMiller and Russian energy minister Novak, were very substantive, extremely constructive, and, I should say, they opened a new chapter inthe energy partnership betweenthe two countries,” Lafazanis said.
The Greek energy minister visited Moscow March 29-30, just a week beforethe official visit ofGreek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras toRussia.
Lafazanis said a stronger energy partnership betweenMoscow and Athens would benefit both countries and help stabilize Europe.
A few days earlier, the deputy head of the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance inspectors, Alexey Alexeenko,visited Greece and said that discussions regarding the exports ofGreek productsto Russia will begin on April 6. Special inspectors will consult with Greek authorities in order to perform checks in several livestock product units, so as to not cause any delay in the resumption of exports to Russia, following the possible lift of theRussian embargoto the EU.
After his meeting, last week with GreekRural Development Deputy Minister Panagiotis Sgouridis, Alexeenko, said that “there will be checks on companies that had not previously been tested in regards to their compliance with the Russian and Eurasian Economic Union legislation. As for those who had been previously checked, the result will show us how much trust we can put on the assurances of the state veterinary services.”
“We will start the tests inGreece. Cyprus is close by, so after Greece, our experts can travel to Cyprus,” he added.
A few days ago, the Russian ministry of Rural Economy announced it is researching options to allow agricultural imports from a number of countries, mainly Greece, Hungary and Cyprus.
“We are actively examining what civilized possibilities exist to respond to their proposals”, Fyodorov said, noting that he primarily refers to Greece, Hungary and Cyprus, but that “it would not be desirable to create problems in the relations between these countries and Brussels”.
According to the minister of Rural Economy, Nikolay Vasilyevic Fyodorov, “there are some, two or three versions, we are discussing and are close to the implementation capabilities”.
Russian president Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also made a reference to these discussions estimating that there can be no exception for Greece from the sanctions, prohibiting direct imports of fruit, though it would be possible to exclude “indirect imports”, in which fruits and vegetables could be imported as raw material from the food processing industry. Such joint Greek-Russian processing companies could be created in Russia and import exclusively Greek raw materials, Peskov said.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/russia-allow-imports-greece-hungary-cyprus-cooperate-energy