Following Poland, Hungary temporarily banned the import of agricultural products from Ukraine. The ban will last until June 30.
This was stated by the Minister of Agriculture of Hungary, Istvan Nagy, writes 24.hu.
"The government undertakes to represent the interests of Hungarian farmers, and in the absence of effective measures from the EU, it, like Poland, will temporarily ban the import of grain and oil crops from Ukraine and some other agricultural products into Hungary," he explained.
According to him, the continuation of current market trends will harm Hungarian farmers. He explained that Ukraine began to export to the European market a large amount of meat, eggs, honey, as well as grain and oil crops, which are not produced according to European standards, and therefore have low production costs. This hinders the sale of products to European farmers.
The minister emphasized that the EU should find a solution regarding Ukrainian products by June 30.
- Poland banned the import of grain and dozens of types of agricultural products from Ukraine. The head of the ruling "Law and Justice" party, Yaroslav Kaczyński, said that the decision was made taking into account "the asymmetry between Polish and Ukrainian agriculture, which is a consequence of the quality of the land, much lower wages in Ukraine and, finally, the fact that in Ukraine, mainly, international companies with extensive infrastructure work on large areas."
- Earlier, Brussels offered €56.3 million as compensation to the affected farmers of Ukraineʼs neighboring countries, but this amount was called too small. In February of this year, the Polish government introduced state subsidies for farmers, but this did not improve the situation.
- Polish farmers even threatened to disrupt President Zelenskyiʼs visit to Poland due to the grain crisis, because they believed that the authorities had not met their demands.
- On April 5, 2023, the Minister of Agriculture of Poland resigned due to the crisis with Ukrainian grain. On the same day, President Zelenskyi visited Poland and said there that the parties had agreed on a solution to the crisis and "found a way out", but already on April 9, Poland announced that it would stop the export of Ukrainian grain at least until July, and now it has been banned altogether.