“Rospotrebadzor” will not submit in Moldovan wines issue imports - official

The chief sanitary doctor of the Russian Federation, Ghenadi Oniscenko, states that „Rospotrebadzor” will not yield in the issue of Moldovan and Georgian wines imports, especially illegal ones. During an interview on Wednesday, August 2, at the “Transmit” radio station in Russian Vologda city, Oniscenko stated that „the bans on wine imports from these countries was fair, caused by the negative results of multiple tests”. „The Russian market will not accept false wines, only high quality ones, which are made by these countries in small quantities,” Oniscenko noted, adding that professional winemakers of Moldova and Georgia will thank him for the taken decision. The Russian press reports that the Russian Federation is not satisfied with the action plan regarding the de-blocking of the exports of Moldovan wines to Russia, considering it as superficial. Almost a month after examining the plan, „Rospotrebnadzor” stated that the proposals of the Moldovans have a general feature. According to them, these statements are included in a letter addressed by „Rospotrebnadzor” to the RM Embassy to Russian Federation and signed by Ghenadi Oniscenko. "The proposals do not include actions of the sanitary-epidemiologic service of Moldova, activities that would ensure the wines and brandies’ quality during their producing process, transporting and preserving,” the letter says. The head of the Moldovan delegation in the recent negotiations in Moscow, Andrei Gurin, head of Inspectorate for Alcoholic Production Supervision, announced that he does not know about the existence of such letter, blaming the press of „inventions”. Previously, he has announced that the preceding 2 action plans for de-blocking the situation, presented by the Moldovan part were considered by Russian as „of general nature”. While drafting the third plan, presented in mid June, the specialists of the National Scientific-Practical center of Preventive Medicine, Association „Moldova-Vin”, Inspectorate for Plants protection also took part in, Gurin mentioned. The head of the Inspectorate for Alcoholic Production Supervision notes that the delegation asked the Russian part to set the necessary indicators in order to determine wines’ quality. According to the standards the wine quality is set by 32 parameters, and only 7 of them are compulsory. He mentioned that Russians have tested the wines randomly. „We have proposed them to take as basis for determining the quality of the wine the standards of the International Organization of Wine and Vine,” Andrei Gurin highlighted previously. The “Wine war” started on 27 March 2006, when the Russian Federation has banned the imports of wines of Moldova and Georgia, saying that they contain pesticides and hard metals. In 2005, RM exported to Russia wines worth USD 313 mln.