Russia on Friday upheld its threat to ban animal products from the European Union, citing concerns over poor food safety standards in Romania and Bulgaria, countries scheduled to enter the bloc in January 2007. As opposed to clean Russian Industry. "We have our standards.", he sniffed.
"We hope that these problems will be solved before (Romania and Bulgaria) join the EU, otherwise we will face certain technical problems with the whole EU," Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters at an EU-Russia summit in Helsinki.
And there's the rub.
EU countries export 1.7 billion euros (2.2 billion dollar) worth of meat, dairy and fish products to Russia each year.
Gonna be some hungry Russkies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday said he was set to impose a ban on all EU animal food products as of January next year and criticized the EU for accepting Bulgaria and Romania as newcomers states without consulting Moscow on Russian interests.
We shoulda been consulted, y'know? The Black Hand must be part of every deal. Wet my beak.