EU Commission restricts Ukrainian agricultural imports for a month
In the dispute over cheap grain from Ukraine, the EU Commission has restricted the import of four Ukrainian products after pressure from several EU countries. Wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflowers may no longer be freely traded in Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia until June 5, the EU Commission announced on Tuesday evening. However, it is still possible that the products would be brought to other EU countries by the countries concerned.
The first details of the agreement were already known on Friday. The background to the conflict is, among other things, that farmers in countries particularly affected by imports had complained about the competition. In response, countries such as Poland and Hungary had independently restricted the import of certain goods. The EU Commission announced that these national measures would now be lifted. Because of the war, Ukraine’s important export routes across the Black Sea were blocked for a long time. The attacked country is now much more dependent on bringing goods to the world market by train, truck or barge.
Ukraine had already welcomed the agreement reached at the weekend. Blocking Ukrainian imports would not only harm Ukraine but also cause great suffering to the Middle East and Africa, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Stockholm on Saturday.