MADRID - fruit and vegetables, the Spain exports have soil abruptly, causing major financial losses for farmers, because of the charge of retracted by now the Germany Spanish cucumbers were the source of the outbreak of e. coli that killed more than a dozen people.
A Spanish official said Wednesday that the Government is considering legal action against the German authorities say no evidence that the bacteria came from Spanish farms.
"We did not preclude measures against the authorities of Hamburg who have questioned the quality of our products", said Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba.
After days of uncertainty responsible of Hamburg said Tuesday that tests showed that Spanish cucumbers that were examined were traces of a strain of the bacterium e. coli, but not one that caused the outbreak.
German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner defended the Hamburg authorities, saying that because the seeds of e. coli had been found on Spanish cucumbers, they had to quickly warn about it.
However, the allegations, had already created a fear of the Spanish product exports from the country of subsidence resulted in a few days.
Pedro Barato, President of one of the main agricultural associations in Spain, Asaja, said Wednesday "the crisis is not over." He said they were still calculating their losses of the incident, adding that the truck drivers, packagers and bar and restaurant owners had also been hit.
BARATO said there is a small rise in orders for Spanish occur at wholesale markets Wednesday, but he calls it a drop in the bucket for an industry that is euro9 billion ($ 12.95 billion) a year in business.
He said the sector a campaign needs urgent public relations to resurrect the image of Spanish agricultural products and that Asaja will be seek compensation for the loss of income. He did step specify if it would be the Spanish Government of the Union European, or both.
"Much damage has been done and someone must pay," he told a press conference.
An officer of the German Ministry of agriculture, said that until now Germany had not received requests for compensation for the Spain. Aigner said the EU was "checks if help is available for farmers."
"Many (farmers) in Europe are affected, particularly in Spain, but also to the Netherlands... and German farmers also suffer large losses", said Aigner.
Spain is one of Europe's top producers of fruit and vegetables. It exported about 10 million tonnes last year, with the Germany taking a nearly a quarter of production, according to the national association of producers and exporters, Fepex.
The province of South-East of Almeria is producing top of the exporting country and the home to one of the two Spanish companies originally cited as possibly the origin of the epidemic. A dry coastal province, Almeria boasts thousands of plastic greenhouses.
"We have worked too hard to build our image to be ruined for the day to the next," said Francisco Vargas, head of the section of Almería Asaja.
An anonymous Dutch cabinet was also cited by the European Union as being under investigation at hatching and Netherlands Agriculture Minister Henk Bleker said producers of vegetables put their losses due to the collapse of exports to the Germany to estimate euro30 million per week.
Bleker said that he appealed for a package of crisis was for the producers of cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. He said that his appeal is supported by the country including the Spain, Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
"We are a little bit later, but I give the floor to the Commission to quickly establish crisis measures".
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Daniel Woolls in Madrid, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Mike Corder in the Hague has contributed to this report.
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