2023-04-28 19:28:00
© European parliament (audiovisual service)
Bulgaria and four other countries, which announced that they suffered damages from duty-free imports of Ukrainian grain into the EU, agreed on Friday a deal with the European Commission to be compensated. In return, they agreed to continue importing Ukrainian food into the EU duty-free for the next 12 months.
European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis announced on Twitter late Friday that an “agreement in principle” had been reached with Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, addressing the concerns of both their farmers and Ukraine.
According to the announcement, until June 5, the import of Ukrainian corn, wheat, rapeseed and sunflower seed will be prohibited in only the five countries, against which Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia will cancel their unilateral bans on the import of Ukrainian food.
From the initial proposal of the European Commission, which was negotiated, the ban on the import of sunflower oil has been dropped. The five countries have failed to persuade the European Commission to expand the ban list to eight more goods they had been pushing for, including honey, sugar and poultry.
Instead of a ban, sunflower oil imports will be monitored by the Commission, and if its quantity increases dangerously, the five countries will be able to trigger a safeguard clause, asking it to be added to the banned goods.
The Commission is also committed to helping the five countries to continue Ukrainian imports passing through them to other parts of the EU and the world.
Brussels will add another 100 million euros from its agricultural crisis reserve to compensate farmers in the five countries, to the already allocated 56 million, which was distributed between Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.
Sofia has already received 16.75 million euros from Brussels and permission to double the amount if it turns out to be insufficient.
Yavor Gechev: The European Commission works slowly and sluggishly, Bulgarian farmers have lost BGN 900 million.
Also on Twitter, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the deal “preserves both Ukraine’s export capacity so it can continue to feed the world and the livelihoods of our farmers.”
Earlier on Friday, the ambassadors from the 27 European countries in Brussels approved the European Commission’s proposal to extend duty-free food imports from Ukraine for another year, which will be voted on by the European Parliament and member states before replacing the current decision, which expires on June 5.
Opposition from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia has so far blocked progress on the decision, which was approved by the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee on Thursday and will be put to a final vote in Strasbourg in 10 days.
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