Specialised European Commissioner in favour of extending ban on agricultural exports from Ukraine

Janusz Wojciechowski, EU Commissioner for Agriculture representing Poland, has supported extending the temporary ban on importing Ukrainian grain to five EU countries until the end of 2023 and proposed subsidies for Ukrainian grain exporters.

Source: European Pravda, referring to EUobserver

Details: The ban, which applies to Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, ends on 15 September. As part of these restrictive measures, Ukrainian agri-food products continued to move through these countries in transit to other parts of the world, but imports from them were banned.

Speaking to a group of MEPs from the parliamentary committee on agriculture on 31 August, Wojciechowski said that the EU should consider subsidising the cost of transiting Ukrainian grain to seaports, for example, in the Baltic states.

He says this proposal is supported by both the five EU countries and Ukraine. 

"This is not the commission proposal, but I hope it will be," Wojciechowski also said, warning that restoring the permit for Ukrainian exports will provoke a "huge crisis" in the five member countries adjacent to Ukraine.

The European Commission, in response to the request, confirmed that there is no such proposal yet. 

The EU executive body said it is currently working to increase the capacity of the so-called "ways of solidarity" and eliminate bottlenecks in five countries due to a sharp increase in grain exports from Ukraine. 

If a solution is not found before 15 September, there is a possibility that countries such as Poland may extend the ban unilaterally,  just as it happened in April.

The next meeting of the Joint Coordination Platform, which brings together representatives of the European Commission, Ukraine and five EU countries, is expected to be held next Tuesday, 5 September.

Ukraine insists on the fact that a unilateral extension of the ban violates the rules of the common market and the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU.

Poland is currently in the midst of an election campaign scheduled for 15 October, where the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) is trying to win a third consecutive term.

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