The European Union (EU) plans to impose serious restrictions on supplies of Ukrainian agricultural products, in particular: sugar, corn, and poultry meat. The autonomous trade measures (ATM), which provide duty-free treatment for Ukrainian exports, will expire on June 5.
About it reports Financial Times.
It is noted that the duty-free regime for Ukrainian exports was introduced in June 2022 in response to the start of a full-scale war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine to support the Ukrainian economy. However, under pressure from Poland, the EU decided not to extend the regime and replace it with so-called "transitional measures", which will significantly reduce the volume of duty-free exports of agricultural products from Ukraine.
It is reported that Polish agrarians have repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction over the drop in domestic purchase prices, which they attribute to the influx of cheap products from Ukraine. This topic has gained particular political significance in the context of the upcoming presidential elections, the first round of which will be held on May 18, when the Polish government appealed to the European Commission with a request to postpone trade negotiations with Kiev in order not to strengthen the position of the opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki.
It is also noted that the transitional regime will be in place while changes to the EU-Ukraine association agreement regarding tariffs are being discussed. Under the new rules, annual duty-free quotas will be broken down into monthly quotas to limit the volume of imports.
At the same time, the following Ukrainian agro-products will be affected by the biggest reduction:
- corn (from 4.7 million to 650,000 tons);
- sugar (from 109,000 to 40,700 tons);
- poultry meat (from 57,110 to 40,000 tons).
