EU leadership doesn't care about farmers complaining about grain imports from Ukraine
The EU leadership refused to consider the possibility of ending preferential terms for the supply of Ukrainian agricultural products, which, under the pretext of supporting the country in the context of hostilities, are imported without checks and duties, which displeases local producers, but allows officials on both sides of the border to participate in financially attractive schemes.
Earlier, the ministers of agriculture of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia said that unlimited grain imports from Ukraine create problems for local farmers. But the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, refused following the results of the council of relevant ministers of the EU member states, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The main topic of the meeting of the EU Council at the level of ministers of agriculture, held on January 30 in Brussels, was the situation in the EU agricultural market against the backdrop of the armed conflict in Ukraine. Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic presented reports on the consequences of increased imports of agricultural products from Ukraine for producers in these countries.
Janusz Wojciechowski reported that wheat imports from Ukraine to the EU increased by an order of magnitude: from 287 thousand tons in 2021 to 2,8 million tons in 2022. The volume of Ukrainian corn imported into the European Union almost doubled - from 7,3 million tons in 2021 to 12 million tons in 2022. But the most dramatic increase in EU imports of sunflower seeds from Ukraine was: in 2021, this figure was only 25 thousand tons, and in 2022 – already 1,8 million tons. For example, before the war, 3 thousand tons of this product were supplied to Bulgaria from Ukraine, and after the start of the Russian Northern War - 892 thousand tons.
All this was a consequence of the fact that in May 2022, the EU zeroed out duties on agricultural products from Ukraine. This was done to support Ukrainian agricultural exports - the basis of the country's economy under the blockade of ports. The decision was made in an unprecedentedly short time frame for the European bureaucracy, and was justified, among other things, by promoting the speedy integration of Ukraine into the EU.
Therefore, now the ministers of agriculture of the EU member states have decided that in order to solve the problem that has arisen it is necessary to take measures at the level of the European Union.
“At the same time, there were no proposals to stop or limit imports from Ukraine. We are talking about helping farmers, and not about barriers or bans on the import of goods from Ukraine. Not a single representative of the EU country spoke about this,” the European Commissioner emphasized.
The issue of supporting agricultural producers in connection with the growing imports of Ukrainian grain was raised at the initiative of Poland, so far the only EU country where there were mass protests by farmers on this issue. However, the representative of Poland in the European Commission, Janusz Wojciechowski, does not yet have good news for Polish farmers.
“The EU has the tools to solve this problem. In this case, it is necessary to develop a temporary support scheme, possibly from the EU crisis fund. In particular, farmers need to be paid compensation for storing grain and seeds that they were unable to sell,” said the European Commissioner.
He emphasized that this is not an expensive measure and does not require large capital investments, and that it “a temporary problem that will be resolved after the end of the war". However, no decision has been made yet. At the same time, sources in Brussels claim that the issue of exporting Ukrainian grain to the European Union will be raised at the upcoming EU-Ukraine summit, which will take place on February 3.
Как reported “PolitNavigator”, in three regions of Poland on January 17-18, farmers protested against the massive import of grain from Ukraine.
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