Russia and Poland are at odds over an issue - but then again, so what else is new? Perhaps what's new is this time the conflict is over meat, and not the controversial American missile defence system, which the Americans want to locate on Polish territory. Russia has banned meat imports from Poland, citing food safety issues. Poland rejects the ban and its legitimacy, claiming that high standards of inspection have been met on all of its meat products (hey, we've been eating pierogi z miesem and feel just fine!). The ban has been in effect since 2005, punishing the Polish meat industry in the process, and the EU suspects the motive is more politically oriented than based on health fears. The Polish government has declared that until Russia lifts the ban, Warsaw will veto any new strategic partnership between the EU and Russia.
Poland is indeed using its trump card, as today Russian President Putin told Russian Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev to "intensify" talks with the EU in order to solve this row with Poland. Poland has been blocking the start of strategic EU-Russia partnership talks, and the issue became one of the prime topics of last week's EU-Russia summit. Relations between Russia and the Western world have lately been reminiscent of a chill not felt since the Cold War. Between Putin's disagreements with Washington at a meeting with Condoleeza Rice last week, to tensions with Tallinn, to threats towards Prague and Warsaw over the proposed missile shield to general criticism of Russia's human rights record, all is not well in the Kremlin. At last week's EU-Russia summit, European Commission President Barroso played the musketeer defence against Putin, stating that any action against an EU member is an action against the EU as a whole. However, at the moment Russia continues to take action primarily against the states it used to control, leading Poland to resort to desperate measures against Moscow. |