Russia plans to ban plant imports from Germany beginning on November 15, a top official told the Interfax news agency Friday. Sergei Dankvert, the head of the federal plant inspection agency Rosselkhoznadzor, said the ban would go into effect because Germany had failed to address Russian concerns about the discovery of a pest in flowers imported from it during the past several weeks. "We asked our German colleagues several times to pay serious attention to this and end the violations, however sanitary control problems remain," he was quoted as saying.
He said that the insect pest frankliniella occidentalis, or thrips, has been discovered on two separate occasions in flowers imported from Germany in early November.