Negotiators from the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement overnight on Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 March on the regulation to extend the suspension of tariffs on Ukrainian products. However, the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Member States to the EU (‘Coreper’) was unable to approve the text of the agreement immediately, on Wednesday 20 March, because some Member States needed more time to analyse it. According to two European sources, it is mainly a question of obtaining sufficient support at national level, rather than questioning the technical details of the agreement.
The Belgian Presidency of the EU Council hopes to put the agreement on Coreper’s agenda quickly, next Wednesday at the latest, according to a diplomat.
For its part, the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade preferred to postpone its vote on the text until the same day. Its members are due to vote on it at the beginning of April, ahead of the very last plenary session before the European elections*.
The terms of the agreement fall somewhere between the mandates of the EU Council and the European Parliament. The latter has obtained an extension of the automatic safeguard to oats, maize, oatmeal and honey.
The EU Council also agreed to shorten the period during which the Commission must activate the automatic safeguard: it will have to do so in 14 days instead of 21.
However, the European Parliament was unsuccessful in its bid to change the reference period for import volumes not to be exceeded for products covered by the automatic safeguard. Volumes will continue to be those for 2022 and 2023. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)
* Corrigendum : the EP's international trade committee voted for the provisional agreement on Wednesday March 21, which it approved with 24 votes for and 10 against.