The ambassadors of the countries of the European Union agreed on a new compromise on the expansion of trade measures for Ukraine.
This was announced by the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU.
They note that the decision "will ensure a balanced approach between supporting Ukraine and protecting EU agricultural markets." Now this compromise will be presented to the European Parliament for quick approval.
According to Radio Svoboda, EU ambassadors agreed to extend the liberalization of trade with Ukraine on the condition that quotas and duties will be introduced based on import volumes not only in 2022 and 2023, but also in the second half of 2021. This is a compromise agreement with, in particular, France and Poland, which demanded that the entire year 2021 be included in the calculations.
A week ago, there was a preliminary agreement of the Council of the EU and the European Parliament to extend the suspension of import duties and quotas on Ukrainian exports to the EU until June 5, 2025, on the condition that the European Commission will quickly respond to any significant disruptions in the European market or in the markets of any individual EU country through Ukrainian imports.
Emergency braking of "sensitive agricultural products" — poultry, eggs, sugar, oats, corn, groats and honey — is also foreseen. That is, the European Commission will introduce tariff quotas if the import of such products exceeds the arithmetic average of the volumes imported in 2022 and 2023 — according to the previous agreement.
- After the start of the full-scale war, the European Union canceled all tariffs and quotas for the transit of Ukrainian grain. This did not suit farmers from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia. These countries began to ban the import of Ukrainian grain, and the European Commission allocated funds to European farmers.
- Ukraine is ready to accept restrictions on its trade with the EU in order to resolve the dispute with Poland. Kyiv is calling on the bloc to ban imports of Russian agricultural products, which still come through Belarus and the Baltic states.