The Slovak government also bans the import of grain and some other agricultural products from Ukraine. The Slovaks became the third in the EU to introduce such a ban.
Novinky writes about it.
They note that this decision is temporary, and the government will hold a meeting of the interdepartmental commission. In Slovakia, they say that local farmers cannot compete with cheap Ukrainian grain on the market.
The Ministry of Agriculture said that it had exhausted all possibilities of legal settlement of the situation with the preservation of transit. It was expected that Ukrainian grain would go through the territory of the country further to other countries, but it ends up in the warehouses of the European Union and destabilizes the market.
- 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 stated 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 imposed state subsidies for farmers, but this did not improve the situation.
- On April 16, Hungary, following Poland, temporarily banned the import of agricultural products from Ukraine. The ban will last until June 30.
- The European Commission reacted to the decision of Poland and Hungary to ban the import of Ukrainian grain. Unilateral actions on trade by the EU member states were called unacceptable.