The representatives of the three countries agreed in Vilnius to find solutions regarding the Russian grain ban Business

At the meeting of parliamentarians and agricultural representatives of the three countries in Vilnius on Friday, it was agreed that the text of the declaration will be coordinated in writing. One of its most important points is the effort to ban the import of Russian and Belarusian agricultural products.

“We are getting closer to a consensus. All parties agree to the declaration itself, but some concepts will still need to be refined to suit all parties”, Kazys Starkevičius, Chairman of the Seimas Economic Committee, said at the meeting of politicians and farmers.

“This is a real draft, but good initiatives can be born from such documents,” said Viktoras Pranckietis, chairman of the Rural Affairs Committee of the Seimas.

According to him, the representatives of all states tend to support the ban on the import of such products, rather than higher taxation.

“Tax or ban on Russian grain?” All those who spoke agree that the trade of Russian grains to and through the EU should be banned, the flow of agricultural production should be regulated, using the products supplied by Ukrainian farmers”, said V. Pranckietis at the meeting in Vilnius.

EU institutions and states are also encouraged to consider banning the transit of agricultural products of Russian and Belarusian origin through the territory of the EU.

The declaration would also provide for the commitment of the countries to control unfair trade, to find ways of interventional purchases of grain in Ukraine and to provide assistance to Ukraine in order to restore the markets that existed before the war.

Brussels on Friday began considering the European Commission’s (EC) proposal to impose import duties on Russian and Belarusian grain. Lithuania proposes to apply them to vegetables and fish products of this origin as well.

In March, Lithuania, together with Latvia, Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic, called on the EC to analyze the possibility of limiting the import of food products originating in Russia and Belarus into the Community.