AGMIN DEMANDS ADDITIONAL INSPECTIONS AS

UNCLAS MOSCOW 003735 SENSITIVE SIPDIS USDA FAS FOR OCRA/KUYPERS; OSTA/HAMILTON, BEAN PASS FSIS/HARRIES, DUTROW PASS APHIS MITCHELL STATE FOR EUR/RUS, STATE PASS USTR FOR MURPHY,FIELD,CHATTIN,HAFNER, KLEIN BRUSSELS PASS APHIS/FERNANDEZ VIENNA PASS APHIS/TANAKA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAGR ETRD ECON WTO RS SUBJECT: AGMIN DEMANDS ADDITIONAL INSPECTIONS AS A CONDITION FOR RELISTING PORK AND POULTRY PLANTS SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED 1.(SBU) SUMMARY: The Russian Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service (VPSS) responded to the U.S. request for the justification for the recent delisting of 19 pork and 19 poultry plants via official letter dated December 19, 2008 (transmitted on December 22, 2008). The letter included 32 pages detailing the deficiencies for each plant. However, the letter fell short of the U.S. request for the specific reasons for delisting each plant and how the plants were in violation of the acts of inspection or the export certificate. The letter also stipulates that these 38 plants may only be relisted based on joint audits of the plants and visits to farms. This demand is not consistent with our 2006 bilateral agreement on plant inspections which gives USDA the authority to relist plants. ¶2. Begin Text. Moscow, December 19, 2008 # F?-?B-2/12948 TO: Deputy Administrator Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) USDA Dr. Ronald Jones Dear Dr. Jones, The Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service shows regard for the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and communicates the following. Fulfilling the agreements reached at negotiations held December 17-18, 2008 in Moscow, we are providing you with the information on inconsistencies detected in the course of joint audits of the US pork (19 plants) and poultry (19 plants) manufacturing and storage facilities conducted by VPSS and FSIS specialists in 2008. At the negotiations, VPSS pointed out to FSIS at the failure to implement liabilities that the US side had accepted to comply with the Russian veterinary and sanitary requirements and regulations when supplying products regulated by the federal veterinary surveillance agency to the Russian Federation. In accordance with the agreement reached in 2006, and as requested by the US side, VPSS gave FSIS the right to certify the US plants on its own account for whether the plants met the Russian veterinary and sanitary requirements and regulations in full, which was followed by VPSS including those plants into the list of exporters to the Russian Federation. In the performance of this work, FSIS confined itself to submitting declaratory statements to VPSS that were not confirmed by any documents regarding reviews conducted at the US plants to verify the compliance with the assurances. The following was detected during 2007-2008 random inspections of meat and poultry processing plants certified by FSIS: absence of FSIS plant certification reports (acts); plants did not have the Russian veterinary and sanitary requirements; there were no documents to serve as the basis for issuing veterinary certificates (documents to confirm disease-free status of the locality and the farm supplying slaughter animals and poultry, and also lab test results for products intended for the Russian Federation tested in accordance with SanPiN specifications). In spite of urgent requests from VPSS representatives to grant them an opportunity to visit farms that supply slaughter hogs and poultry with intent to carry out full assessment of the system of veterinary control effective in the US for the entire livestock production system starting from a farm, such opportunity was not provided by the US side to the Russian inspectors. In the meantime, violations of the Russian veterinary legislations in shipments of livestock products from the USA to Russia continue. VPSS territorial directorates detect a considerable number of violations in 2008 as compared with 2007 during veterinary border monitoring of livestock shipments arriving from the USA. Monitoring of various types of meat and meat products imported from the USA into the Russian Federation constantly discover residues of antibiotics, coccidiostatics, toxic elements, as well as salmonella and e.coli group bacteria contamination. In this connection, VPSS had to impose temporary restrictions on meat shipments to Russia from 25 US plants, and also an intensive monitoring was initiated over shipments arriving to the Russian Federation from 7 US plants as a result of single lab tests. The above-mentioned information has been reported to FSIS in a timely manner and on more than one occasion, however no measures to improve the situation have been taken to this day. At negotiations on December 17-18, 2008, the US delegation confined themselves to declarations stating that the current US national food safety system was highly efficient. There was no information provided concerning the intentions of the US side to improve the existing situation. As for the request of the US side to lift the ban on livestock product shipments from the USA to the Russian Federation from 19 pork plants and 19 poultry plants, we confirm that the issue of whether these plants can be relisted in the list of the US plants eligible to export their products to the Russian Federation may be considered only in accordance with any findings of the plants? joint audit and visits paid to farms that supply slaughter animals, which VPSS is ready to conduct in February of 2009. In view of the above, VPSS has to note one more time that there are systemic violations in activities of the US federal veterinary service to monitor meat exports to the Russian Federation, with the result that assurances declared by FSIS in veterinary certificates are not fulfilled. We ask you to urgently submit to VPSS the 2007- 2008 FSIS plant certification reports (acts) for the plants to be included by VPSS to the list of US plants eligible to export their products to the Russian Federation. We will appreciate the timely information on reasons why the US plants that were delisted twice from the list of US exporters eligible to export their products to the Russian Federation fail to comply with the Russian requirements, and are again relisted by FSIS. Doctor Jones, accept my assurance in the deepest respect. Attachment: 32 pages. Deputy Head N.A. Vlasov