(adds quote from Ukraine producers) By Jeremy Smith BRUSSELS, May 21 (Reuters) - The European Union intends to ban imports of sunflower oil from Ukraine after Kiev failed to guarantee that its shipments were clear of mineral oil contaminants, a European Commission official said on Wednesday. "Our intention is to ban sunflower oil from Ukraine," the official said, adding that the paperwork was being finalised and was likely to be ready to enter force on Thursday. "We were waiting for information that there was a commitment that no sunflower oil contaminated with mineral oil would be exported to the EU. They (Ukraine) failed to do this -- and the deadline expired yesterday," the official told reporters. EU food safety regulators were informed in April that a 40,000-tonne cargo of unrefined oil, shipped into France from Ukraine by sea, had been split into seven batches for re-export to Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, and within France. It was later found to be contaminated by a highly viscous hydrocarbon-oil, possibly a lubricant, which experts say has only a low level of toxicity and does not pose a health risk. Now, it appeared the contaminated oil had found its way into a total of 13 EU countries and three non-EU states, the official said. It was not yet clear which other countries were affected. Ukraine sends around 1 million tonnes of sunflower oil to EU countries each year, or some 55 percent of its total exports. "We are ready for any inspection and want to cooperate," Stepan Kapshuk, head of the Ukrainian sunflower oil producers' association UkrOliyaProm, told Reuters. "Europe has somewhat of a shortage of sunoil while Ukraine's sunoil stocks are significant," Kapshuk said. Food safety experts at the European Commission -- which administers EU law and policy for the bloc's 27 countries -- have been treating the case as fraud. (Editing by Peter Blackburn) (Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev)
Parliamentarians from Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc, block President Viktor Yushchenko from giving his state of the nation address to the assembly in Kiev May 13, 2008. Yushchenko later gave ...
