The European Commission has called on Russia to reverse a ban on all imports of vegetables from the European Union, introduced today (2 June) because of an outbreak of E. coli in Germany. The Commission described the ban as “disproportionate”.

Although the virulent strain of E. coli has so far killed 16 people in Europe, the outbreak is concentrated in northern Germany, around Hamburg. Cases have been reported in ten countries, with 1,614 people affected. In all but two cases, a link to northern Germany has been established.

<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; mso-fareast-language:EN-GB;} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;A Commission spokesman said that the import ban was likely to be added to the agenda of the EU-Russia summit next week (9-10 June), if Russia did not change its stance before then. Russia is the destination for one quarter of the EU’s exports of vegetables and the trade with Russia is worth €600 million a year.

Neither the EU nor the World Health Organisation (WHO) has yet pinpointed the origin of the outbreak, but the WHO said it did not recommend any trade restrictions and John Dalli, the European commissioner for health and consumer protection, said that “any ban on any product” would be disproportionate.

The German authorities had suggested the source of the infection might be cucumbers from Spain, but their own tests and those of Spanish inspectors did not confirm this suspicion, so the European Commission yesterday withdrew an alert that had been circulated about Spanish cucumbers.

National ministries were discussing the outbreak in a video-conference this afternoon. The health ministers from the EU’s member states are scheduled to meet in Luxembourg on Monday, when the outbreak is bound to be discussed.

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