Brussels, May 22 - Ukraine has given guarantees that it will carry out strict controls on its exports of sunflower oil to the EU after a cargo was found contaminated by a hydrocarbon-oil, the European Commission said on Thursday.
The European Union's executive Commission had sought specific guarantees and technical information from the Ukrainian authorities, a spokeswoman said.
"Some of them we got, others they failed to give to us," she told a regular briefing.
"The most important thing for us is to guarantee that there will be no export of sunflower oil to the EU," she said. "We got the guarantee last night and we are still considering taking safeguard measures."
Commission officials told Reuters Ukraine had given adequate guarantees that it would enforce appropriate controls that the EU executive considered to be "very important".
EU food safety regulators were informed in April that a 40,000-tonne cargo of unrefined sunflower 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.
It appeared the contaminated oil had found its way into a total of 13 EU countries and three non-EU states. 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.
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.