On Wednesday 31 January, the European Commission proposed extending the EU’s autonomous measures suspending tariffs and tariff quotas on all Ukrainian and Moldovan exports to the EU for a further year, from June 2024. It also listened to the complaints of EU countries bordering Ukraine, denouncing the negative consequences of the influx of Ukrainian agricultural products onto their markets: the two proposals for regulations contain a strengthened safeguard mechanism, as well as an automatic safeguard that specifically targets Ukrainian poultry, eggs and sugar.
In concrete terms, the EU wants to cap imports of these three products at the volumes recorded in 2022 and 2023. An automatic safeguard is provided for, which will enable the Commission to reintroduce the tariffs in force before the start of the autonomous measures, if imports of poultry, eggs and sugar into the EU exceed the reference volume. “This provides guarantee that the level of imports that disrupted the markets will not be repeated”, said Commission Vice-President Margarítis Schinás.
These sectors have been identified as vulnerable by the Commission. According to a European official, imports of Ukrainian sugar into the EU have increased by more than 1,000% between 2022 and 2023 (50% for poultry and 130% for eggs). This measure only applies to Ukraine, not Moldova.
On the other hand, the two proposed regulations provide for a safeguard mechanism that takes account of negative effects in one or more Member States even when the Single market is not disrupted overall. This differs from the previous system, which took greater account of the effects on the Single market.
In September, the Commission decided that there was no longer any reason to limit Ukrainian cereal imports (see EUROPE 13251/1). However, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia maintained import bans on these Ukrainian products.
“We have called on the Member States to remove their national measures restricting imports from Ukraine. All options are on the table if they do not comply with the rules, including infringement procedures”, said Mr Schinás.
See the draft regulation for Ukraine:https://aeur.eu/f/anx ; and for Moldova: https://aeur.eu/f/any (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)