ATHENS, August 12. /ITAR-TASS/. Greece will lose about 178 million euro over Russia’s ban on imports of Greek agricultural produce, Manolis Kefalogiannis, the leader of the group of Greek members of the European Parliament with Greece’s Nea Demokratia party, said on Tuesday.
The losses stem from Russia’s response measures to the European Union’s policy against Russia over the situation Ukraine, local media quoted him as saying. In his inquiry to the European Commission, he asked to say when relevant provisions on compensations to Greek farmers would be applied. Apart from that, he noted that the reduction of agrarian workers would create additional burden on the Greek economy.
Along with farmers, Greek shipping companies are also demanding compensation for considerable losses from Russia’s ban.
On August 7, Russia imposed a package of measures to respond to economic sanction from the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union and Norway. Thus, Russia banned for a term of one year the imports of fruit, vegetables, milk and dairy products from these countries. Some types of ready-to-eat meat and fish products (with the exception of sausages) have not fallen under the ban. According to the Russian Federal Customs Service, these countries exported 9.1 billion U.S. dollar worth of products, which are now on the sanction list, in 2013, with the European Union countries accounting for 6.5 billion U.S. dollars of that sum. Other countries’ exports were much more moderate: Norway - 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, the United States - 843.8 million U.S. dollars, Canada - 373.6 million U.S. dollars, and Australia - 182 million U.S. dollars.
The one-year import ban was Russia’s first measure in response to sanctions imposed on Russia by a number of Western countries over its stance on Ukraine.