EU seeks €1.4bn annual trade sanctions on Russia in WTO pork dispute

The EU is seeking authorization to impose annual trade sanctions worth €1.39 billion ($1.65 billion) on Russia, it said on Wednesday. The bloc has alleged that Moscow failed to comply with a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on pigs and pork. The EU plans to submit a request to the WTO’s dispute settlement body on January 3, triggering a new round of litigation. In February, Russia lost the WTO ruling, and agreed to comply by December 6, Reuters reports. The EU says it had not done so and asked to be allowed to impose the sanctions at a value equivalent to the total relevant exports in 2013, increasing by 15 percent a year.