Kaliningrad Fears EU Expansion May Have Negative Impact on Regional Food Safety

A public hearing entitled Food safety and the political situation in the Kaliningrad Region is taking place in Kaliningrad today. As a Rosbalt correspondent reports, the hearing will feature representatives of the agroindustrial sector of all the municipalities in the region, farming unions and specialists in the regional government and regional Duma.

According to the regional administration for agricultural industry, Kaliningrad landowners can no longer compete with their Western counterparts due to the lack of up-to-date technology. Regional agroindustrial output covers just over half of the local population's demand for basic goods, excepting potato and eggs. The demand is met by imported goods, the volume of which is increasing every year. Some experts are predicting that the agroindustrial sector of the Kaliningrad Region will stagnate in future as the region is now surrounded by EU countries and is becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of Russia. Some also suggest that the West is showing aggression towards the Kaliningrad Region on the food market.