Portugal vows to keep Spanish pigs out over swine fever fears

Portuguese secretary of state for agriculture Capoulas dos Santos said on Friday that despite Madrid's threat to take Portugal to the European court, Lisbon would continue to keep its borders closed to Spanish pigs to prevent the spread of swine fever.

Speaking on Portuguese TV, Santos said Lisbon would remain unmoved on the issue.

"We will remain firm on this issue because we are completely convinced that we are doing the right thing.

The information we have shows that the situation in Spain is not under control," he said.

"The danger of the disease entering Portugal is very high because it is highly contagious and with the movement of people and vehicles the risk is certainly extremely high.

We have therefore taken a series of measures, aware that we may possibly be violating current EU regulations." The TV recalled that Portugal imposed a partial ban on the import of Spanish pigs last April when the first cases of swine fever appeared in Catalonia in northeast Spain.

The ban was later extended to Aragon in the northeast.

New cases of the disease emerged in Castilla y Leon in Spain last week.

Portugal reacted by extending the ban to the import of pigs and fresh meat products from any part of Spain.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.