EU envoys to discuss limits on Ukraine farm product imports

(EU ambassadors) will discuss the point at the end of today's meeting," a source in the Belgian presidency of the EU Council said. Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski was due to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Mykola Solsky, on Wednesday afternoon, with the governments of the countries due to convene on Thursday.

Ambassadors to the EU's 27 member states were due to discuss a new proposal on food imports from Ukraine on Wednesday, a source said, after some countries said more curbs were necessary to stabilise the bloc's agricultural market. EU members are debating how to grant Ukraine a further year-long extension of tariff-free access to its markets while also placating farmers who have protested for months against EU environmental rules and cheap imports.

The European Union reached a provisional agreement last week to grant Ukrainian food producers tariff-free access to its markets until June 2025, albeit with new limits on imports of grains, but France and Poland said the restrictions did not go far enough. "The presidency made yesterday evening a new proposal with slight adjustments.... (EU ambassadors) will discuss the point at the end of today's meeting," a source in the Belgian presidency of the EU Council said.

Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski was due to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Mykola Solsky, on Wednesday afternoon, with the governments of the countries due to convene on Thursday. Siekierski was quoted by state news agency PAP as saying that talks with Ukraine had been difficult, but another senior lawmaker said a deal could be near.

LICENSING DEAL Poland has previously said that it is eyeing a licensing deal for agricultural trade with Ukraine similar to one agreed with Kyiv by

Romania and Bulgaria .

Siekierski said that Ukraine wanted to maintain a liberal approach to trade while Poland thought that things like humanitarian and military aid should be treated separately from food exports to protect farmers' livelihoods in central and eastern Europe. He said that talks were ongoing about a system of licensing exports, but that there were differences over the range of products that would be covered.

However, earlier on Wednesday, Krzysztof Paszyk, leader of the parliamentary group of the agrarian Polish Peasants' Party (PSL), to which Siekierski also belongs, struck an optimistic tone about the talks. "We are close to solving these problems together in dialogue," he told PAP. "I think it will be possible today and tomorrow to make what is sometimes called a transit actually a transit ... I am optimistic about the results."

Polish farmers say that much of the Ukrainian grain that is supposed to transit through Poland to other countries ends up in the domestic market instead. Ukraine says farmers' protests, which have included blockades of the border and the spilling of Ukrainian grain across rail tracks, are harming its war effort against Russia and its economy. It also says that only a small portion of the grain it exports transits through Poland.

 

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