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BRUSSELS, May 23 (Reuters) - The European Union imposed stricter controls on imports of sunflower oil from Ukraine on Friday following a recent contamination, allowing trade in the oil to resume with Kiev once the new measures are in place.

"The European Commission adopted today a decision fixing strict conditions for the import of Ukrainian sunflower oil into the European Union and providing for the reassessment of the situation within a year," the EU executive said in a statement.

Since April, contaminated oil from Kiev found its way into a total of 13 EU countries, prompting a possible outright trade ban on the Ukrainian exports by the Commission, which administers food safety for the 27-member bloc.

"Once the new measures are in place, Ukraine will resume exports of sunflower oil into the EU. This will take a couple of weeks and until then there is no trade in sunflower oil between Ukraine and the EU," a spokeswoman for the Commission said.

Ukraine sends around 1 million tonnes of sunflower oil to EU countries each year, or some 55 percent of its total exports.

EU food safety experts learnt in April that a 40,000-tonnes 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.

Other EU member states that became involved were Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands.

But traces of the contamination went much further afield and were picked up in Albania, Azerbaijan, Ghana, Monaco, Taiwan, Tanzania, Turkey, Vanuatu and the Maldives, EU officials said. (Reporting by Darren Ennis; Editing by Editing by Peter Blackburn)

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