By RIA Novosti
Brussels : Poland has informed other EU members that it has lifted its veto on talks on a new Russia-EU partnership agreement that expired last December.
Poland vetoed the talks after Moscow imposed an embargo on Polish meat in November 2005, claiming that meat from third countries was being imported under the cover of Polish produce. Russia resumed meat imports in December 2007.
“Our Polish colleagues have informed us that they have lifted their objections [to the talks] and have reached an agreement [on the issue] with Russia,” Slovenian Foreign Minister Dmitry Rupel, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, told a news conference late on Monday.
The 2005 ban – which Moscow said was over health concerns, but Warsaw called political – was a major source of tension between the two countries under the previous conservative government in Poland.
However, after a new center-right government came to power in the former Warsaw Pact country late last year, both sides expressed their willingness to improve relations.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who visited Moscow at the beginning of February, earlier said that Poland wants Russia to “become a more important partner than it has been up to now,” in the context of “economics, politics and security.”
Last year, Russia and the EU extended the old Partnership and Cooperation agreement for one more year, and they are hoping to reach a new deal by the end of 2008.