The European Commission proposed on 19 July to suspend customs duties on inputs used for the production of nitrogen fertilisers until the end of 2024. The aim of this proposal is to help alleviate the costs of fertiliser producers and farmers in the EU, in the context of the war in Ukraine.
The EU market for certain nitrogen fertiliser inputs is heavily dependent on imports from third countries, with Russia being the second largest supplier.
In 2021, the EU imported 2.9 million tonnes of ammonia and 4.7 million tonnes of urea for nitrogen fertiliser production. The prices of these products increased during 2021 and rose again in 2022 after Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. This has had a profound negative impact on the production of nitrogen fertilisers in the EU.
The proposal aims to reduce costs for EU producers and farmers and to help increase stability and diversification of supply by favouring imports from more third countries while excluding Russia and Belarus from the suspension of customs duties.
The proposal will now be discussed by Member States in the EU Council with a view to its adoption.
Copa-Cogeca wants the EU to go further. The EU’s agricultural organisations and cooperatives (Copa-Cogeca) welcomed the proposal on 20 July as a step in the right direction. However, they call on the Commission to follow its logic to the end by also suspending conventional duties on the main fertilisers used directly by farmers (UAN, DAP, MAP and NPK) as well as anti-dumping measures on imports of UAN from Trinidad and Tobago and the United States.
“Only such an ambitious measure could make those markets more dynamic and bring down the prices paid by farmers in the long term”, argue the EU agriculture organisations.
Throughout 2021, European farmers have experienced an unprecedented increase in nitrogen fertiliser prices due to the imbalance between supply and demand on the global fertiliser market, Copa-Cogeca recalls.
Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are the world’s leading exporters of mineral fertilisers, accounting for 43% of EU mineral fertiliser imports.
As a result, European farmers now face the dual risk of soaring mineral fertiliser prices and shortages, which seriously affect not only their incomes but also EU food production and global food security.
Link to the proposal: https://aeur.eu/f/2pv (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)