Updated 12.23 | Published 12.09
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full screen Demonstration tractors are met by armored vehicles on a road south of Paris on Wednesday. Photo: Thibault Camus/AP/TT
The European Commission is hoping for a middle ground to help both Ukraine and angry farmers. Trade facilitation must continue – but with exceptions.
Since the summer of 2022, Ukraine and also Moldova have escaped tariffs and quotas for their exports to the EU, due to Russia’s renewed war.
But it has also been followed by protests and anger in several EU countries in the east, where the agricultural sector has seen itself flooded by cheaper products from Ukraine.
When the EU Commission now proposes an extension of the customs exemption, it is therefore done under new conditions.
– We are aware of the concerns raised by some member states as well as parties in the agricultural sector, states Commissioner Margaritis Schinas at a press conference on Wednesday.
The proposal now includes an “emergency brake” where quotas may be reintroduced for poultry, eggs and sugar from Ukraine if imports are greater than the average level in 2022 and 2023.
At the same time, relief is also proposed in general for European farmers in terms of how much land needs to be set aside.
The measures – which will apply retroactively from January 1 – come after recent loud protests by farmers in Germany, France and Belgium, among others.