There are less than four months to go before the suspension of tariffs and tariff quotas on imports from Ukraine expires (June 2024). The Member States approved the European Commission’s proposal to renew these autonomous measures for one year, with strengthened safeguard mechanisms (see EUROPE 13335/2). For their part, MEPs on the Committee on International Trade (INTA) tabled amendments to the proposal, despite the call from the rapporteur, Sandra Kalniete (EPP, Latvian), to adopt the report without modification.
For several members of the INTA Committee, two points in the rules need to be amended. They concern the automatic safeguard on certain agricultural products and the reference period for import volumes not to be exceeded.
The European Commission has proposed to protect the interests of European producers of poultry, eggs and sugar by limiting imports of these products from Ukraine by setting a maximum volume. If they exceed the 2022 and 2023 levels, these Ukrainian products will be subject to tariffs.
The right-wing in the European Parliament believes that the safeguard should be extended to other products. The EPP, ID and ECR are also calling for cereals, flour, seed oils and honey to be included.
The other groups are more cautious and believe that this type of safeguard should not be generalised.
On the other hand, most of the groups agreed on the need, in their view, to change the reference period for the volume of imports of products affected by the safeguard.
They consider that the years 2022 and 2023, on which the Commission wants to base itself, are not relevant. It would be better to stagger the reference period from 2021 to the end of 2023 in order to take account of pre-war import volumes, which were also lower.
The EU’s agricultural organisations and cooperatives (Copa-Cogeca) are also concerned that the Commission’s proposal could be adopted without any changes. They reacted to the Council’s approval of the text. “It is unfortunate that the small adjustments which would have delivered an effective solution for European producers while maintaining EU citizens support to Ukraine were not considered”, declared Copa-Cogeca alongside other associations. They call on MEPs to ensure clear and effective measures for the sectors affected.
They will vote on Ms Kalniete’s report in the INTA Committee on 7 March.
Read the amendments tabled: https://aeur.eu/f/ayv (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)