Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) voted in favour of the provisional agreement on autonomous trade measures (ATMs) for Ukraine on Tuesday 9 April (28 votes in favour, 8 against). This agreement was reached the day before between European Parliament and EU Council negotiators and was approved by all Member States straight after (see EUROPE 13386/1). The text still has to be approved at the plenary session of the European Parliament before it is finally adopted by the Council.
The co-legislators believe they have struck the right balance between supporting Ukraine and protecting European agricultural interests. However, the compromise reached greatly reduces the advantages for the Ukrainian economy. The total suspension of tariffs on imports from Ukraine was expected to make Kyiv €2.15 billion. The automatic safeguard covering seven different agricultural products reduces this benefit to €1.8 billion. If the co-legislators had decided to include common wheat and barley (as requested by certain parties), the impact would have been even greater.
The inclusion of seven products in the automatic safeguard, which has finally been decided, as well as the demands of certain Member States to go even further “go beyond all logic”, a European official told Agence Europe. The Ukrainian economy needs its resources from agricultural exports, he said.
However, some member countries are not happy. This includes France, which campaigned alongside Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia to include common wheat and barley in the automatic safeguard. Marc Fesneau, the French Minister for Agriculture, voiced his concern when he arrived at the informal meeting of European agriculture ministers in Genk on Tuesday 9 April: “We are going to refer the matter to the Commission using mechanisms outside of the ATM, including a 2015 regulation (regulation 2015/478) which should allow us to have import licences and monitor this market, because we cannot wait for the grain market to become even more destabilised before intervening again. We need to think ahead. France and a number of other countries are trying to get this message across”. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal and Lionel Changeur)