Alexander Tkachev in St. Petersburg, Russia | Alexander Aleshkin/Epsilon via Getty Images France allows banned Russian to travel for animal health talks French government says Russia’s agriculture minister was attending an international conference.

PARIS — The French foreign ministry confirmed Tuesday that France had granted a visa to a Russian minister who is subject to an EU travel ban but insisted the decision was permitted as the official was traveling to an international event.

"It is allowed when officials travel for meetings of international organizations such as the U.N. or others," Nikola Gulievatej, a foreign ministry spokesperson, told POLITICO.

Alexander Tkachev, the Russian agriculture minister, attended the annual general session of the World Organisation of Animal Health (known by its French acronym OIE) in Paris this week, created in 1924 to fight animal diseases at the global level.

The minister is on a list of 146 people the European Union subjected to asset freezes and travel bans in June 2014 for their part in Crimea’s annexation by Russia.

Tkachev was at the time governor of the Krasnodar region — east of Crimea, across the Kerch strait — and was awarded a medal "for the liberation of Crimea" by separatist leaders for the support he had provided them. He became Russia’s agriculture minister in April 2015.

The news that Tkachev had received a French visa was made public on Monday by his own ministry, which added that he had traveled to Paris on Sunday. He was refused a visa entry by Germany in January, according to Reuters.

France didn’t have to grant Tkachev a visa. Under the EU sanctions regime, member countries simply “may” grant exemptions when they host an international intergovernmental organization, such as a U.N. conference or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Tkachev’s trip may also help mollify the French agriculture lobbies who have been complaining for some time that they are the main victims of the counter-measures — such as a food embargo — that Russia has implemented in retaliation for EU sanctions.

The irony is that Tkachev is key to Vladimir Putin’s goal of shoring up Russia's agriculture sector to help it cope with Western sanctions.

"We need to fill our market with our own products, the products of domestic producers, and we need to do it quickly to ease pressure on the food market, decrease prices and so on," Putin said at a meeting to announce Tkachev’s appointment as minister. The Krasnodar region is one of Russia’s key wheat-producing areas.

The official French government line is still that there can be no lifting of EU sanctions unless Russia shows it is abiding in good faith by the so-called “Minsk agreements” on a possible political settlement of the situation in eastern Ukraine.

A resolution asking for the immediate, unconditional lifting of the measures against Russia was voted by the French National Assembly on April 28, but it is non-binding and was only approved (by 55 MPs out of 577) because members of the majority Socialist party were absent that night.

Federica Mogherini, the European commissioner in charge of foreign policy, said last week that the EU was poised to renew economic sanctions when they expire in July.

"EU heads of state or government had tied the lifting of the sanctions to a full implementation of the Minsk Agreements. So far, this has not been reached," she said.

The decision would have to be unanimous among the 28 EU members, and countries such as Italy, Greece and Hungary have repeatedly expressed skepticism at sanctions, but opponents are expected to fall in line behind Germany, Britain and France, who are keen to harmonize the European position with the U.S.

“It’s not that complicated really. No [Russian] move on Ukraine, no move on sanctions,” a European diplomat said.