Spain considers suing Germany for being wrongly blamed in E. coli outbreakSpain said

Wednesday it's considering legal action against German authorities for blaming its produce for an E. coli outbreak that has killed 16 men and women and sickened more than 1,000 other people across Europe.

"We aren't ruling out legal actions against the authorities in Hamburg who have put our produce in the line of fire," Vice President Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told radio station Cadena Ser.

"There has not been one case of this type and there in no way has been. That means that the bacteria is not in Spain and if it is not in Spain, then it has not come from Spain, nor is it expected to come from Spain inside the future," Rubalcaba said.

German wellness officials claimed Might 26 that cucumbers imported from Spain was 1 source of the recent deadly E. coli outbreak in its northern states.

But they admitted Tuesday that the most recent laboratory tests have shown that the Spanish exports were not behind the outbreak.

About 200 million euros (288 million U.S. dollars) and 550 jobs have already been lost within the agricultural sector soon after Spanish cucumbers had been wrongly blamed for the E. coli outbreak.

Meanwhile, Environment Minister Rosa Aguilar said that Spain will ask the European Union for economic aid to help cover the heavy losses its agricultural sector has suffered.

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