THE European Commission decided to extend a series of exceptional bans on tariff-free imports of Ukrainian grain to countries including Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania until September 15th as reported by Reuters citing Robert Telus, the agriculture minister of Poland.
It can be remembered that the previous ban of the EU on Ukrainian wheat, maize, sunflower seed, and rapeseed to the said countries expired on June 5th.
And in May, the European Commission imposed what it calls exceptional and temporary preventive measures on imports of the four items from Ukraine in an effort to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighboring European Union countries.
The European Commission said that they enacted the measure to address the concerns of farmers in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania that suffered massive losses following the influx of Ukrainian grain.
In 2022, the EU suspended customs duties on all agricultural produce from Ukraine for a year in a bid to support the nation’s economy, but the cheap grain has left EU producers struggling against it, deeming it as unfair competition. It also sparked protests in central and Eastern Europe after it undercut domestic prices and badly affected the sales of local producers.
Local producers in Central and Eastern Europe have been complaining about cheap Ukrainian grain imports, saying that they can’t compete with such prices, and have demanded compensation from the European Commission.
Russian media reports say that exports of Ukrainian crops were initially destined for the Middle East and Africa, however, they got stuck in Eastern Europe instead, thus endangering the livelihoods of local producers.
