In a joint declaration issued on Wednesday 19 July, five European Union countries close to Ukraine (Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary) called for European restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports to be extended beyond 15 September to protect farmers in these countries.
“Either the European Commission agrees to prepare (...) regulations to extend this ban, or we will do it ourselves”, warned the Polish Agriculture Minister, Robert Telus, after a meeting with his counterparts in Warsaw.
In June, after intense discussions aimed at appeasing the reluctance of certain Member States (France, Spain and Germany in particular), the exceptional safeguard clause authorising only the transit of wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds through the territory of these Eastern European countries was extended (see EUROPE 13195/6). The operation of the EU’s ‘solidarity lanes’ to enable Ukraine to export its agricultural produce via the EU has been the subject of much criticism.
On Wednesday, the Chairman of the European Parliament Agriculture Committee, Robert Lins (EPP, German), called on the Commission to present a package of concrete measures to improve the situation. “The Commission must show responsibility”, he warned.
The European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, could present measures at the next meeting of the European Parliament Committee on 30 August. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)