The European Commission officially proposed extending the suspension of import quotas and duties for Ukrainian exports to the EU for another year, at the same time including restrictions on agricultural products, which was demanded by several EU countries. “European Truth” writes about this with reference to the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
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What the EU offers
For Ukraine, the European Commission proposes to extend preferential trade terms with the suspension of import duties and quotas for one year, which should provide support for the Ukrainian economy in war conditions.
At the same time, the proposal included a “strengthened limiter” to protect the interests of European farmers.
“To this end, and in view of the significant increase in imports of some agricultural products from Ukraine to the EU in 2022-2023, the updated autonomous trade measures contain a strengthened mechanism of restrictions. This allows for a quick response in the event of significant distortions on the EU market or the market of one of the member countries,” explains the communiqué.
For three types of products – poultry meat, eggs and sugar – an “emergency brake” mechanism is proposed to “stabilize imports at the level of average import volumes in 2022-2023.” This means that if these import volumes are exceeded, import tariffs will begin to apply.
According to the same proposal, the European Commission proposes to extend the suspension of duties on imports from Moldova for another year.
The proposal should be further considered The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
Background
The preferential trade regime between the EU and Ukraine has been in effect since June 4, 2022 and continued in 2023. At the same time, due to the dissatisfaction of farmers, the EU introduced temporary restrictions for some types of agricultural products for several months in 2023, and some countries, in particular Poland, extended them and, after cancellation at the EU level, unilaterally.
The current extension of the trade regime without duties and quotas for Ukraine expires on June 5, 2024, for Moldova – on July 24, 2024.
The European Commission notes that total imports from Ukraine to the EU from October 2022 to October 2023 grew by 24.3 billion euros, while in October 2021 it reached 24 billion euros.
