March 25, 2024

EU to approve maintaining suspension of duties, quotas on Ukraine's agricultural products

The European Parliament and European Council reached a provisional agreement on extending trade liberalisation measures for Ukraine.

With the agreement, the temporary suspension of import duties and quotas on Ukrainian agricultural exports to the European Union will be renewed for another year, until June 5, 2025, to support Ukraine amidst its war with Russia.

Both the Parliament and Council will now both have to give their final approval to the agreement. The current suspension expires on June 5, 2024. The new regulations should enter into force immediately following that expiration date.

The agreement enables the European Commission to take swift action and impose any measures it deems necessary should there be significant disruption to the EU market or the markets of one or more EU countries due to the entry of Ukrainian imports.

The regulation also provides for an emergency brake for particularly sensitive agricultural products, namely poultry, eggs and sugar. Members of the European Parliament had secured the expansion of this list to include oats, corn, groats and honey.

They also received firm commitments from the Commission to take action if there is a surge of Ukrainian imports of wheat. The reference period for triggering the emergency brake will be 2022 and 2023, meaning that if imports of these products surpass the average volumes of these two years, tariffs would be re-imposed.

Parliament negotiators also ensured that the Commission would act faster - within 14 days instead of 21 days - if trigger levels for the automatic safeguards were reached.

- European Parliament