By KYIV. May 10 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Commission is studying the situation on the market of poultry meat, eggs, and frozen fruit and is ready to return to tariff quotas if Ukraine maintains the current volume of their supplies to Europe, EU Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski said.
At a meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on Monday, he said that at present, there are no grounds to prohibit the import of any goods from Ukraine other than wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower to Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. These goods are also allowed to transit through the territory of these five countries, pap.pl publication reported.
According to Wojciechowski, the market inspections, according to the current legal regime, will be completed in November, and in line with the updated rules, if the procedure begins in June, they will be completed in September.
“The situation on the poultry meat market is not only local, but also pan-European, and it is very likely that if imports really continue on such a scale in the current months, there will be a return to tariff quotas that were in effect before liberalisation,” he said.
According to the European Commissioner, the European Commission is monitoring the situation in the egg market. There is an increase in imports, and it is also covered by the over-import procedure. “If this procedure shows excessive imports, quotas or import bans will be introduced,” he added.
According to Wojciechowski, in 2022, imports of frozen fruits from Ukraine to the EU reached 44,000 tonnes, which is 18.9% more than in 2021, when supplies amounted to 37,000 tonnes.
“This situation will be under control. If during the season it turns out that there is a threat to Polish and European producers, the European Commission is ready to impose restrictions even in an emergency, express mode. It depends on what the situation will be during the season, and how the situation will develop in the coming months,” he said.
According to the European Commissioner, from April 2022 to the end of March 2023, Ukraine exported 48 million tonnes of wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower seeds, of which 24 million tonnes were sent to Africa and Asia, about 24 million tonnes to the EU countries, from 10.3 million tonnes of them to five Ukraine neighboring countries.
Wojciechowski said Poland received 4.1 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain, of which 3.3 million tonnes remained in the country, and 700 tonnes were in transit.
The largest transit country through which Ukrainian grain passed was Romania, through which 9 million tonnes passed, of which 2.5 million tonnes remained in the country.
As Wojciechowski said, there was no uncontrolled import of grain into the EU from Ukraine. Due to the growing problem in Ukraine’s neighboring countries, a temporary ban was introduced on imports to Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia. “Existing restrictions are ‘likely’ to be extended,” the Polish publication said.
The European Commissioner recalled that free trade with Ukraine is very beneficial for the Polish economy. In 2022, goods worth almost EUR 10 billion were exported from Poland to Ukraine, and less than PLN 6 billion (EUR 1.254 billion) were imported. At the same time, he said that this is one-third of all EU exports, the value of which was EUR 30 billion. In second place is Germany with exports of EUR 4 billion.
“If someone asked me why I am in favor of liberalising trade with Ukraine, it is only because it was demanded not only by political but also by economic reasons,” the Polish publication quoted the European Commissioner as saying.
