Will there be higher duties on imports from Ukraine? EU close to taking decisions protecting farmers

The European Union plans to introduce higher customs duties on imports from Ukraine in the coming weeks, says "Financial Times" on Wednesday. The decision to close the existing trade arrangements was taken erstwhile Poland took the lead in protecting EU farmers, as the diplomats quoted by ‘FT’ claim.

The findings that let most Ukrainian goods to be imported into the EU without work expire on 6 June. The EU plans to replace them with transitional measures while discussing a fresh trade agreement. Work on it may last until October.

According to the diplomats referred to in the British Journal, "a transitional proposal late presented to the EU associate States would drastically reduce duty-free amounts for agricultural products". In the opinion of the callers ‘FT’, the duty-free import so far is ‘a lifeline for Ukrainian farmers and budget (states)’.

The paper recalls that the duty-free strategy introduced in 2022 (when the full-scale war of Russia started with Ukraine – PAP) primarily afraid inexpensive Ukrainian poultry, wheat and sugar. Most of these products were transported through the territory of EU countries to Africa and Asia. This sparked protests among Polish and French farmers who blamed Ukrainian exports for lowering home prices.

The Ukrainian authorities estimation that a return to pre-war trade conditions would reduce the country's gross by around €3.5 billion per year.

According to the 2 EU diplomats, the transitional measures would be to divide the yearly duty-free quota into 12 monthly quotas, with the aim of limiting imports during talks.

As calculated, this will have the top impact on imports of maize (a projected decrease from 4.7 million tonnes to 650 000 tonnes), sugar (a projected decrease from 109 000 tonnes to 40.7,000 tonnes) and poultry (a projected decrease from 57.1,000 tonnes to 40 000 tonnes).

Source: PAP