Moldova-Vin: „Wine crisis may be settled soon”

The director of the Agri-Industrial Agency Moldova-Vin, Valeriu Mironescu, has expressed conviction that the Moldovan wine exports to Russia could be resumed soon. He argued his stance at a news conference on Wednesday, April 12. Mironescu noted that under a recent order of veterinary doctor of Russia Genady Onishchenko, Russian laboratories are allowed to resume the investigation of samples of Moldovan wines. „The situation will be relieved because the actions of the Russian sanitary authorities are groundless and they shall finally comply with bilateral agreements. Their provisions were violated because of not knowing the existing sanitary-epidemic certificates issued by Russian and Moldovan laboratories accredited by competent bodies of Russia.” At the same time, Moldova was not officially notified over detected shortcomings, concrete categories and names of wines, list of involved economic agents which have allegedly delivered bad quality wines. Also, it is unknown so far if the shortcomings are related to bottled wines, those purchased for further bottling in Russia or counterfeit wines, in order to take necessary measures. Mironescu told journalists that the Moldovan side has asked the urgent convocation of the Economic Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States. He noted that most of Moldovan exporters have called on laboratories of other countries in order to carry out arbitrage testing of production. Mironescu underlined that laboratories of Rospotrebnodzor sent the findings of testing of 46 samples of wines, at the insistence of the Moldovan side, on Tuesday, April 11, and they show that no shortcomings were discovered. These certificates confirm the quality of more than 15 million bottles of wine exported to Russia. According to Mironescu, this fact reveals that the actions of the Russian veterinary doctor were wrong because the requirements of Russian laboratories do not stipulate determination of pesticides in wines, but only in grapes during harvesting period. „Scientific researches in the field demonstrate the absence of pesticides in wine because they are decomposed during fermentation or later. Scientists of the Moscow-based Wine Institute have recently reconfirmed this conclusion. Mironescu stressed that by stopping the importation of Moldovan wines the competent bodies of Russia intended to spoil the image of Moldovan wines. This action may have grave consequences on Moldova’s wine industry because Russia absorbs 75 percent of wine deliveries or wines worth over 240 million dollars. He emphasised that the cause indicated for restriction of wine exports is only a pretext that does not have any connection with health of consumers and it aims to install artificial barriers on way of free trade between the two countries. Asked about current activity of wineries in Moldova, Mironescu said that most of them do not work or partly work at present. Moldova continues exports to another 43 countries which do not create artificial problems, he continued, because „Moldovan wines do not have any rival in the entire world as regard the price/quality relation and this is a sufficient reason for diversification of wine market.” However, many enterprises have sent their workers in unpaid holidays. According to Mironescu, losses of enterprises will be calculated later along with those generated by refusal of Russian authorities to issue new excise stamps, as the old stamps have been banned before the wine conflict. „Another confusion is related to intention of Russian importers to return the acquired production, while the acquired wines are their property because they have been paid, including export duties,” Mironescu said. He confirmed that Russia did not withdraw the wines and cognacs made in Transnistria from sale in trade networks.