Just hours before the expiry of its safeguard measures on Ukrainian cereals, the European Commission announced on Friday 15 September that it would not be renewing them. Ukraine will now be able to export its cereals to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, and not just for transit.
After analysis, the European Commission concluded that the market distortions in the five Member States had disappeared thanks to the work of the coordination platform and the temporary measures put in place on 2 May 2023 (see EUROPE 13173/25).
However, action is planned to monitor the situation closely: within 30 days, Ukraine must put in place legal measures, including an export authorisation system, to prevent excessive flows.
From Saturday 16 September, the day on which the restrictions are lifted, Kyiv must start to monitor exports of the four product groups that were targeted by the restrictions. Ukraine is expected to submit an action plan on this subject by Monday 18 September at the latest.
All this will enable the European Commission and Kyiv to monitor the situation via the coordination platform and to react should restrictive measures once again prove necessary.
From Santiago de Compostela, the European Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, confirmed that the Ukrainian authorities were “ready to introduce measures to avoid a surge in imports of Ukrainian cereals into the EU, by immediately putting in place short-term measures and working on long-term measures, such as a system of export licences within 30 days”. He argued that the ban on cereal imports could only be an exceptional measure, while not ruling out the option of reinstating protective measures in an emergency. This decision is due to be discussed by the EU27 agriculture ministers on Monday 18 September (see other news), after Poland announced that it wanted to unilaterally extend the restrictions on Ukrainian cereals (see EUROPE 13248/28).
In the evening, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia announced that they were unilaterally extending their embargos. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)