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BRUSSELS, March 26 (Reuters) - The European Union and Russia signed an agreement on Wednesday to soothe Moscow's concerns over high pesticide residues in its imports of plant products and help clear the way for stalled EU-Russia partnership talks.

The dispute over food imports has soured relations between the two sides for months. The emphasis has been on Poland, whose agricultural shipments Moscow blocked, saying they had forged certificates. Warsaw said the ban was political.

The agreement was signed in Brussels by Sergei Dankvert, head of Russia's plant and veterinary authority, and a senior official from the European Commission's food safety unit.

"The purpose of the memorandum is to create mechanisms and a dialogue with Moscow when Russia identifies at import too high ... levels of residues of pesticides and contaminants in EU plant products for human consumption," a Commission statement said.

The Commission, the EU's executive arm, negotiates foreign trade issues on behalf of the bloc's 27 member countries.

While the EU had set ceilings for permitted pesticide residues that applied across its member countries, Russia had fixed maximum limits that were sometimes lower than the corresponding EU levels, the Commission said.

"The Commission has proposed to the Russian authorities responsible for setting the Russian criteria for pesticide residues and contaminants, to have technical discussions on this difference," the statement said.

The agreement should remove the remaining hurdle for long-awaited partnership talks between the EU and Russia -- the largest energy supplier to the bloc.

In December, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Warsaw would lift a veto on the partnership negotiations if Moscow ended all remaining restrictions on Polish food imports.

The two countries also in December signed a memorandum on lifting a ban on imports of meat from Poland that had soured Moscow's relations with the EU for more than two years. (Reporting by Jeremy Smith; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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