EU ambassadors have reached a compromise on extending trade measures for Ukraine. This is stated in a statement by the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

“EU ambassadors have agreed a new compromise on extending trade measures... for Ukraine, ensuring an approach that balances supporting Ukraine with protecting EU agricultural markets. This compromise will now be presented to the European Parliament for approval,” noted a statement on the presidency page on the X social network.

The EU reached a preliminary agreement on the issue last week, but France and Poland said the planned restrictions were not enough and called for further measures “to prevent what they called the destabilization of EU agricultural markets,” Reuters writes.

“According to an EU diplomat familiar with the new deal, it is similar to last week’s agreement, but it changed the reference period for determining when the emergency brake mechanism, which would impose tariffs on some products, should be applied,” the agency said in the material. .

Under the original deal, tariffs would go into effect on products such as poultry, eggs, sugar, oats, corn, cereals and honey if imports exceeded average levels for 2022 and 2023.

“The new compromise extends this reference period to include the second semester of 2021, the diplomat said,” Reuters writes.

As the agency notes, this lowers the ceiling for the introduction of duties, as a result of which Kyiv may lose €330 million ($357 million) in annual revenues.

“Despite pressure from some states, no new products that could be subject to tariffs were added to the list, the diplomat said on condition of anonymity,” Reuters said.

Earlier this week, France and Hungary said tariffs should be extended to wheat if imports rise above average.

Socio-political context

Let us recall that on February 26, the European Commission called on Kyiv to treat the situation of EU farmers with understanding and export Ukrainian grain from the European bloc to third countries. During a press conference, European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski called the situation on the European grain market difficult. At the same time, he said, it is necessary to help Kyiv with transit so that Ukrainian products can be sent to the markets where they were traditionally sold. Woitsekhovsky emphasized that the European Commission is counting on cooperation with Kiev on this issue.

  • European Parliament meeting

  • AP

  • © Frederick Florin

The problem of food imports continues to provoke tension between Ukraine and a number of EU countries, including Poland, which believe that at the union level it is necessary to limit the import of Ukrainian food products and thus protect farmers in Central and Eastern Europe. Thus, according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Warsaw wants the European Union to cancel all trade preferences granted to Kyiv after the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine. For its part, Ukraine announced that it was ready to accept restrictions on trade with the EU in the name of resolving the political dispute with Poland. In particular, The Financial Times newspaper wrote about this with reference to Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Economy Taras Kachka.

Subsequently, on March 13, the European Parliament did not agree on the EC’s idea to extend the free import of goods from Ukraine for another year - from June 6, 2024 to June 5, 2025, according to the EP website. It is noted that European deputies submitted the relevant document to the parliamentary committee for revision.

Later, on March 26, the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Nikolai Solsky emphasized in an interview with the Financial Times that the EU’s restrictive measures regarding Ukrainian grain would hit Kyiv’s sources of income. According to him, 80% of the problems that are usually associated with Ukrainian exports “do not exist” because they are allegedly “invented.”

At the same time, Polish farmers continue to protest and even decided to collect signatures for the resignation of the government. One of the leaders of the protest of farmers of the Lublin Voivodeship, Krzysztof Chmiel, called on all farmer associations to join the action. According to him, farmers intend to collect 100 thousand signatures.

"It's impossible to compete"

As, in turn, analysts believe, a certain “new compromise” in the EU suggests that the union, against the backdrop of ongoing protests, is strenuously trying to find ways to maintain support for the Kyiv regime in the field of trade.

“This is a kind of act of desperation on the part of the EU. They strive to help Ukraine even in this format, albeit with reservations. And this initiative still hits the interests of European farmers, who, against the backdrop of all the threats against them, have become an extremely passionate political force in Europe,” said Evgeniy Semibratov, deputy director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Forecasts of RUDN University, lecturer at the Knowledge Society, in a conversation with RT.

Thus, according to the German statistical company Statista, 81% of respondents in Poland are on the side of European farmers. A survey conducted in Spain by the research institute GESOP also shows that about 83% of respondents support local farmers. In France, farm worker protests enjoy strong public support: a study by Odoxa-Backbone Consulting for Le Figaro newspaper showed that 89% of those surveyed encourage farmer protests.

At the same time, the further activity of farmers will depend on how far the governments of EU countries will go in terms of supporting the agricultural sector, Semibratov believes.

“Farmers understand that in the conditions of cheap Ukrainian imports, it is impossible for them to compete with imported products, so they need subsidies, and, with a high degree of probability, the solution to such problems will fall on the shoulders of the EU member countries themselves, that is, their taxpayers. And this may cause continued protests by farmers,” he says.

As Alexander Kamkin, a senior researcher at the Center for Comparative and Political Studies at IMEMO RAS, suggested, for his part, against the backdrop of the indignation of farmers, the European Parliament may accept a compromise version of the agreement between the ambassadors of the EU countries on the extension of trade measures for Ukraine.

“This document will probably be accepted because through it the European Union is trying, on the one hand, to give a certain freedom of action to local European farms, and on the other, to somehow maintain support for Ukraine in the supply of its products to the EU,” Kamkin noted. in RT comment.

At the same time, he believes that the decision of the EU ambassadors does not level out the whole range of problems.

“Farmers are unlikely to be satisfied with the new agreement, since the cancellation of mass imports of Ukrainian products is only one of the points that irritate European farmers. For example, in France and Germany, they are primarily indignant because of the government’s plans to abolish subsidies on diesel fuel, fertilizers, and other related products. The latter was caused by a budget deficit due to financial support for the Kyiv regime from the EU. But Europe has not yet reached an agreement on the abolition of subsidies,” says the analyst.

  • Trucks with Ukrainian grain on the border with Poland

  • AFP

  • © Wojtek Radwanski

Taking this into account, protests by farmers both in Poland and Germany, as well as in other EU countries, will continue, the specialist is sure.

“The call by Polish farmers for the resignation of the government is aimed at attracting attention and wider support from other social groups. However, such a document will not have legal force and cannot lead to the automatic resignation of the government. Here you need either a parliamentary decision on a vote of no confidence in the ministers, or the current prime minister’s own decision. But farmers will probably not be fully heard in Brussels,” concluded Kamkin.