EU reintroduces quotas on sugar and egg imports from Ukraine

4 months ago 11

The European Commission announced, on Monday (1 July), that the two commodities will no longer be exempted from duties and quotas as of Tuesday 2 July, since they exceeded the cap fixed in the regulation on trade benefits for Kyiv.

Since 2022 the EU has had autonomous trade measures (ATMs) in place, liberalising imports from Ukraine to help it in its war effort.

The influx of cheap Ukrainian products, particularly in the EU border countries (Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria) and subsequent demonstrations by farmers, led the EU to introduce ’emergency brakes’ on imports.

These emergency measures include the reintroduction of tariff quotas from the 2016 Free Trade Agreement with Ukraine. This will happen if imports of ‘sensitive’ products – eggs, poultry, sugar, oats, maize, groats and honey – exceed the average volume between 1 July 2021 and 31 December 2023.

Oats was the first product to trigger the measure, on 18 June.

“Given that imports of eggs and sugar from Ukraine since the beginning of 2024, are already above the volumes set (…), additional imports will continue at most favoured nation (MFN) duty,” the Commission announced.

From 1 January 2025 until 5 June 2025, Ukraine will be able to export five-twelfths of the threshold set for triggering the emergency brake, corresponding to 109 438 tonnes of sugar, and 9 662 for eggs.

Not enough for manufacturers

The market situation is delicate especially for sugar, as the imports from Kyiv have surged from around 20,000 tonnes before the war to nearly 500,000 tonnes in 2022-2023.

But the emergency brakes remain too “drastic” for food manufacturers.

“This automatic safeguard is economically unjustified for sugar and incoherent with the EU’s promise to support Ukraine and pave the way towards accession”, says Yuriy Sharanov, president of the committee of European sugar users (CIUS) in a press release, calling on the EU to restore free trade “as soon as possible”.

According to the representative of the agrifood companies, this mechanism was introduced under pressure from the European elections, and without any impact studies.

Full free trade was “good for both Ukraine and the UE” the CIUS, which is calling for an additional 500,000 tonne quota, stated. In particular, the organisation added, the sugar coming from Ukraine made it possible to make up for the shortfall in European production.

Too much for beet growers

Beet growers acknowledge that the EU is becoming increasingly dependent on imports – due, they say, to the effects of pesticide restrictions – but also because of unfair competition for European growers.

“In Ukraine, beet is grown by agro-holdings covering 220,000 hectares, whereas in France it is grown on no more than 170 hectares. The environmental conditions of production are completely different,” Timothé Masson, market expert at the French beet growers’ union (CGB) told Euractiv.

“Any new quota will lead to production losses and damage the European sugar beet industry,” he added.

Although France imports very little Ukrainian sugar, this is not the case for Spain and Italy, which are major consumers of French and German sugar and are increasingly sourcing from the Ukrainian market.

Producers hope that the forthcoming negotiations for the period after June 2025 will be more favourable to them.

“Either we have to stop the quotas or we have to impose the same standards on Ukraine,” concluded the CGB representative, adding that a return to the very low pre-war import levels is now “illusory”.