The European Union plans to impose higher tariffs on Ukrainian goods imported into the EU after June 6 — thatʼs when the agreements expire, under which the bloc lifted tariffs on imports from Ukraine after Russiaʼs full-scale invasion.
The Financial Times writes about this.
The European Union has a free trade agreement with Ukraine, but temporarily lifted remaining tariffs after Russiaʼs invasion in 2022. Those arrangements expire on June 6, and the EU plans to introduce "transitional measures" that will apply until the two sides renew their common trade agreement.
The Ukrainian government estimates that a return to pre-war trading conditions would reduce its revenues by approximately €3.5 billion per year.
The decision to reinstate tariffs on Ukrainian imports came after Poland led efforts to protect the blocʼs farmers, the FT writes, citing diplomats.
In 2022, the duty-free regime extended to cheap Ukrainian poultry, wheat and sugar, much of which passed through EU countries to Africa and Asia. But farmers and politicians in Poland, France and elsewhere soon accused Ukrainian exports of undercutting domestic prices.
This was particularly worrying for the Poles. They had unilaterally banned the import of Ukrainian grain, thereby violating EU rules. On the eve of the country’s presidential election, Warsaw asked the Commission to postpone trade talks with Kyiv to minimize the chances of victory for the opposition candidate from the nationalist opposition, Karol Nawrocki, diplomats told the FT.
A European Commission spokesperson confirmed that the arrangements put in place after the full-scale invasion will not continue, as they are now "working on revising" the free trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine.
"The Commission is also considering possible transitional measures in case the negotiations are not concluded and applied by 6 June," the spokesman added.
The head of the European Parliamentʼs trade committee Bernd Lange said it would take at least until October this year to "find a solution".
His committee will ask the European Commission on Wednesday why the promised trade talks have stalled, given that the June deadline was known in advance. According to him, “the situation is truly unacceptable”.
Ukraine currently has a quota under which it can sell a certain amount of goods to the EU duty-free during the year. Two EU diplomats told the Financial Times that there is a transitional measure, where they propose to divide this annual norm into 12 parts — one for each month. This means that they will not be allowed to sell a lot at once, but will have to be distributed evenly throughout the year. This is how they want to limit imports from Ukraine while the parties agree on new trade rules.
This will affect the sales of corn, sugar, honey, and chicken the most:
- instead of 4.7 million tons of corn per year, only 650 thousand will be sold;
- instead of 57 thousand tons of chicken — 40 thousand;
- instead of 109 thousand tons of sugar — 40.7 thousand.
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