The Prime Ministers of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia have urged Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, to take action regarding the influx of Ukrainian grain into the European Union. The initiative originated with Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
In a letter laying out measures to counter the adverse effects of rising Ukrainian agricultural imports on the EU market, Morawiecki was joined by Viktor Orban of Hungary, Nicolae Ciuca of Romania, Eduard Heger of Slovakia, and Rumen Radev of Bulgaria. The leaders stress that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has driven up production costs for farmers, increased business risk, and strained EU agricultural markets.
Yet these challenges are not uniform across Europe.
They note that the most acute difficulties occur in countries that border or are near Ukraine, where Ukrainian products have surged into EU markets—particularly in grains, oilseeds, eggs, poultry, sugar, fruit juices, blueberries, apples, flour, honey and pasta.
Politicians point to mismanagement of grain surpluses in warehouses, which has destabilized markets for grain, industrial crops, and oilseeds, especially wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflowers, adding costs for agricultural producers.
Given the scope of these phenomena, the leaders call for substantially broader EU support. They argue that current resources from the CAP and national budgets are insufficient, and urge activating additional funding sources beyond planned emergency measures to aid producers who have suffered losses and risk losing liquidity.
These steps, they say, could also help realize the original aim of the solidarity belts by exporting Ukrainian surpluses to Africa and the Middle East to avert famine. The leaders call on the Commission to explore options for buying Ukrainian grain surpluses from neighboring Member States for humanitarian purposes.
They also reiterate a plea for EU financial support to speed up transport infrastructure development and improve connectivity, including rail, road, port facilities, and border terminals. They advocate expanding Black Sea and Danube port infrastructure and intermodal links, along with additional equipment like freight trains, ships and trucks to ensure the smooth circulation of Ukraine-origin goods through the EU and toward third countries.
Moreover, they propose a joint EU plan with the World Food Programme to secure Ukrainian grain purchases so it does not flood EU markets, helping maintain food trade flows and mitigating the wider consequences of the war in Ukraine for other nations.
The leaders emphasize the urgency of accelerating proposed EU-wide support mechanisms and speeding up notification processes for programs under the Commission’s Temporary Crisis Framework for state aid measures following Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
On trade rules, they suggest adjusting the current legal framework for importing Ukrainian agricultural products to permit regulation of inflows by volume and direction to curb distortions in EU markets.
They also endorse an automatic support mechanism for farmers in regions and sectors hit hardest by excessive imports, routines that disturb EU markets and threaten producers. In the ongoing debate about extending autonomous trade measures to imports from Ukraine, they advocate revising safeguard clauses to reduce tariff rate quotas if tariffs are reintroduced under the Association Agreement.
Beyond that, the proposal includes monitoring the regulation’s impact and preserving the EU’s ability to respond to unfair practices in Ukrainian imports, such as enhanced surveillance or potential anti-dumping actions. Addressing excess goods remaining in member states and protecting the solidarity belts is seen as essential.
The Prime Ministers state that if market distortions cannot be resolved by other means, they urge the Commission to reintroduce tariffs and tariff-rate quotas on Ukrainian imports. They also propose swift emergency adjustments to CAP-funded programs in response to the Ukrainian crisis and encourage Member States’ ideas to be incorporated promptly.
The discussion underscores a broader effort to safeguard EU agricultural resilience while managing the humanitarian and economic implications of the ongoing conflict.
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Source: wPolityce