The year has barely begun and already the European Commissioners are at loggerheads over Ukraine. With the Commission due to recommend, by the end of January, that the temporary measures suspending all import duties on Ukrainian products until June 2025 be maintained, a dissenting voice has been raised within the College of Commissioners.
These measures, implemented following the Russian invasion, are intended to help Kyiv’s economy, which is heavily dependent on exports. Extended last year and due to expire in June, they add to the tariff reductions already provided for in the 2014 EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and have the effect of eliminating the remaining customs duties on industrial products, fruit, vegetables and various agricultural products (see EUROPE 13172/3).
In a letter sent at the beginning of January to the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and to the European Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, expressed his strong reservations about the idea of this extension.
According to the Polish news outlet RMF 24 and Politico, who were able to obtain the letter, the Commissioner warns of the effects that these measures could have on the influx of Ukrainian cereals and agricultural products into European markets, particularly those in Eastern Europe, with the risk of a repeat of the situation in 2022 and a resurgence of opposition from several countries (see EUROPE 13278/2, 13255/16).
“The extension of trade privileges granted to Ukraine [...] without safeguards or quantitative restrictions threatens to trigger a new crisis of excessive imports of agricultural products”, he writes.
Two years ago, Poland strongly criticised this situation, arguing that the suspension of customs duties was detrimental to its agricultural sector. Janusz Wojciechowski was the only European Commissioner to support Poland’s unilateral decision to introduce an embargo on imports from Ukraine, which was imitated by Hungary (see EUROPE 13163/17).
In his letter, the European Commissioner stated that he might not support this extension if it did not include safeguard provisions similar to those that the Commission has applied in the past to imports of Ukrainian rapeseed, wheat or maize.
According to an internal source, the Commission’s proposal should be finalised within the week and presented to the College of Commissioners at their meeting on 16 January. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)