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7 months ago
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The end of the saga on the temporary liberalisation of Ukraine’s imports to the EU could mark a new start in relations between Brussels and Kyiv.
Talks with Ukraine on permanent trade liberalisation will start soon, as requested by EU leaders in the conclusions of the summit of 21-22 March, mentioned to Euractiv by the Ukrainian Trade Minister Taras Kachka, and as per the clause included in the agreement reached on Monday evening between the Council and the European Parliament.
As of June 2025, there will be no more temporary measures; Brussels and Kyiv will work on a new treaty, and the role of agriculture in it will be crucial and more constructive than it has been in the past months.
The renewal of temporary trade benefits for Ukraine has been an open wound and one of the most blatant contradictions in the EU’s support for Kyiv.
European farmers have shown that they want to defend what they consider sensitive sectors. At the same time, those in Ukraine who want to continue exporting their most valuable products are victims of Russian tactics to weaken the country’s most prosperous economic sector.
In recent months, we have seen coalescing the interests of French and Polish cereal growers and their governments, whose most deeply rooted Eurosceptic opposition to the European elections is in the agriculture sector.
Confirmation came from the torpedoing of the EU-Canada trade agreement in the French Senate, motivated by the fears of the agricultural sector, and the outcome of the last Polish regional elections, with 57% support for the conservative, nationalist PiS in rural areas.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the end of the trade benefits for Ukraine saga came the day after that Polish vote.
In short, it’s time to turn the page with a new permanent agreement to replace the gruelling negotiations on temporary benefits.
But an agreement will be tough and we must prepare for the expected, the unknowns, and the opportunities.
The determination of European farmers to protect what they consider sensitive sectors is in the first group.
How the debate on the EU’s new Common Agricultural Policy, expected to start in early 2025 at the latest, will influence the talks is in the second group.
What Ukrainian agriculture will look like in 2025 and beyond is even less clear because. As confirmed by the outlook of the International Grain Council, the sector is already changing with a reduction in wheat production and an increase in oilseed production.
And here come the opportunities.
On Tuesday, the EU agriculture ministers met in Genk in an informal council convened by the Belgian EU presidency to gather proposals and fill the EU’s vegetable protein deficit, basically used in animal feed. The EU imports around 50 million tonnes a year in oilseeds and protein crops.
The idea to stop looking at Ukrainian agriculture as just a problem, and instead having Ukraine become a privileged supplier of a historically deficient resource, is still not generally accepted but is gaining traction.
“We would like to discuss relations with Ukraine in the area of imports of proteins, soybeans, and other products,” Adam Nowak, undersecretary of state at Poland’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said before the meeting.
The chief of EU farmers association COPA, Christiane Lambert, told Euractiv by telephone: “Of course, we are concerned about the negotiation” in the long term, “the Ukrainians are producing without many of the constraints we are under”.
“On the other hand,” she added, “with appropriate accompanying programmes, Kyiv could move towards increasing vegetable protein production and reducing wheat production”.
It’s a hypothesis worth studying to make Ukraine an integral part of the EU’s strategic autonomy projects.
The Roundup
A full-scale conflict in Europe is “no longer a fantasy” and Europeans must find new ways to financially prepare for a potentially wider war on the continent, the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell warned on Tuesday.
EU leaders are expected to stress the importance of making progress in the Cyprus settlement talks, according to draft conclusions, seen by Euractiv, for an EU summit on 17-18 April, amid new calls from Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar for a ‘two-state solution’ for the divided island.
The European Parliament’s trade and energy committees voted on Tuesday to support the EU withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), with 58 members in favour, eight against, and two abstaining.
The EU’s Single Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, expressed his support on Tuesday for the European Solar Charter, a new document designed to boost support for domestic solar manufacturers.
Swedish European People’s Party MEP Sara Skyttedal and former Social Democrat lawmaker Jan Emanuel presented on Tuesday a list for June’s European elections that seeks to unite all those dissatisfied with the EU with the aim of re-negotiating Sweden’s EU membership.
All European political parties will sign on Tuesday to a set of code of conduct rules, brokered by the European Commission, as part of broader efforts to shield June’s EU elections campaign from foreign interference and disinformation.
The European Union is facing a grid investment gap of €800 billion until 2030, finds a report commissioned by industry lobby group ERT, who call for another power market revamp to help address the issue.
Last but not least, for the latest batch of transport-related news, check out this week’s Transport Brief.
Look out for…
- Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni in Greece, meets with Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday.
- Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi participates in Delphi Economic Forum in Greece on Wednesday-Thursday.
- European Parliament plenary in Brussels on Wednesday-Thursday.
- Eurogroup on Thursday
Views are the author’s
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Alice Taylor]
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