France and Poland pressed on Tuesday for greater curbs on imports of food products from Ukraine to prevent what they called the destabilization of European Union (EU) agricultural markets and further upsetting of farmers protesting across the EU. Additionally, agriculture ministers from 20 of the EU’s 27 member countries, including France, Italy, Poland, and Sweden asked Brussels to scale back and possibly suspend the bloc’s anti-deforestation law on Tuesday, saying the policy would harm farmers.
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.
French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau told reporters before a meeting with EU counterparts in Brussels that destabilized markets could erode public support for Kyiv, which would neither be in the interests of the EU nor of Ukrainians.
His Polish counterpart Czesław Siekierski said farmers in countries neighboring Ukraine were paying too high a price.
Nearby, farmers jammed the EU district with about 250 tractors, including a main road into Brussels and the square in front of the European Parliament. A number dropped sugar beets, piles of earth and wooden pallets beside a police barricade.
The European Commission has proposed suspending duties on Ukrainian farm produce for a further year to June 2025, with a new “emergency brake” for poultry, eggs and sugar leading to tariffs if imports exceed the average levels of 2022 and 2023.
Oats, maize, groats, and honey have since been added to the list. Fesneau and Hungarian minister István Nagy said wheat also had to be included.
France and Poland are meanwhile pushing for the brake threshold to be the average of 2021-2023. This would include the year before Russia’s invasion, when Ukrainian exports to the EU were curbed by tariffs and quotas.
Kyiv has said most of its grain exports are now going via the traditional Black Sea route, rather than into eastern Europe. Low global wheat prices have dropped because of abundant supplies in top exporter Russia.
“The defense of Ukraine is also about not participating in Putin’s propaganda, namely that the problem of falling grain prices is due to Ukrainian supplies,” Germany’s Cem Özdemir told reporters.
David Clarinval, the agriculture minister of Belgium, which holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, said he expected a solution to be found in the coming days, without detailing what such a solution would entail.
EU ambassadors are scheduled to tackle the topic on Wednesday
Deforestation law
Also on Tuesday, some 20 members of the European Union asked Brussels to scale back and possibly suspend the bloc’s anti-deforestation law, arguing that the policy would harm farmers, in the latest blowback against Europe’s environmental agenda.
The EU law aims to root deforestation out of supply chains for beef, soy, and other agricultural products sold in Europe, so that European consumers are not contributing to the destruction of global forests from the Amazon to Southeast Asia.
Those rules equally apply to European farmers, who will be banned from exporting products cultivated on deforested or degraded woodlands.
Agriculture ministers from 20 of the EU’s 27 member countries, including France, Italy, Poland, and Sweden supported a call by Austria to revise the law, at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, Austria’s agriculture minister Norbert Totschnig said.
“We now urge the Commission for a temporary suspension of the regulation allowing for a feasible implementation accompanied by a revision of the regulation,” Totschnig said in a statement.
More action required
And finally, while all such events seem to suggest that EU countries are actively trying to placate angry farmers demonstrating across the bloc, the Belgian agriculture minister, David Clarinval, has called for even greater action.
Clarinval said that the EU should continue looking for all possible solutions to calm farmers’ qualms. He added that the issue “is not over,” following the meeting of agriculture ministers of the bloc in Brussels on Tuesday.
French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau told reporters before a meeting with EU counterparts in Brussels that destabilized markets could erode public support for Kyiv, which would neither be in the interests of the EU nor of Ukrainians.
His Polish counterpart Czesław Siekierski said farmers in countries neighboring Ukraine were paying too high a price.
Nearby, farmers jammed the EU district with about 250 tractors, including a main road into Brussels and the square in front of the European Parliament. A number dropped sugar beets, piles of earth and wooden pallets beside a police barricade.
The European Commission has proposed suspending duties on Ukrainian farm produce for a further year to June 2025, with a new “emergency brake” for poultry, eggs and sugar leading to tariffs if imports exceed the average levels of 2022 and 2023.
Oats, maize, groats, and honey have since been added to the list. Fesneau and Hungarian minister István Nagy said wheat also had to be included.
France and Poland are meanwhile pushing for the brake threshold to be the average of 2021-2023. This would include the year before Russia’s invasion, when Ukrainian exports to the EU were curbed by tariffs and quotas.
Kyiv has said most of its grain exports are now going via the traditional Black Sea route, rather than into eastern Europe. Low global wheat prices have dropped because of abundant supplies in top exporter Russia.
“The defense of Ukraine is also about not participating in Putin’s propaganda, namely that the problem of falling grain prices is due to Ukrainian supplies,” Germany’s Cem Özdemir told reporters.
David Clarinval, the agriculture minister of Belgium, which holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, said he expected a solution to be found in the coming days, without detailing what such a solution would entail.
EU ambassadors are scheduled to tackle the topic on Wednesday
Deforestation law
Also on Tuesday, some 20 members of the European Union asked Brussels to scale back and possibly suspend the bloc’s anti-deforestation law, arguing that the policy would harm farmers, in the latest blowback against Europe’s environmental agenda.
The EU law aims to root deforestation out of supply chains for beef, soy, and other agricultural products sold in Europe, so that European consumers are not contributing to the destruction of global forests from the Amazon to Southeast Asia.
Those rules equally apply to European farmers, who will be banned from exporting products cultivated on deforested or degraded woodlands.
Agriculture ministers from 20 of the EU’s 27 member countries, including France, Italy, Poland, and Sweden supported a call by Austria to revise the law, at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, Austria’s agriculture minister Norbert Totschnig said.
“We now urge the Commission for a temporary suspension of the regulation allowing for a feasible implementation accompanied by a revision of the regulation,” Totschnig said in a statement.
More action required
And finally, while all such events seem to suggest that EU countries are actively trying to placate angry farmers demonstrating across the bloc, the Belgian agriculture minister, David Clarinval, has called for even greater action.
Clarinval said that the EU should continue looking for all possible solutions to calm farmers’ qualms. He added that the issue “is not over,” following the meeting of agriculture ministers of the bloc in Brussels on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters
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