The announcement of Poland And from Hungary to ban entry Grain and gods Ukrainian agricultural products the EU did not like this because it feared a domino effect that could affect other Eastern European countries. Brussels warns: “Unilateral actions are not acceptable”. Eventually, due to a certain lack of trucks and freight trains, part of the grain remains in European areas, causing prices to drop. Hence the protests of thousands of farmers and small business owners from Poland to Bulgaria.
The war and the temporary implementation of the agreement between Kiev and Moscow on the export of grain from the Black Sea forced access to Eastern Europe for the main product of the Ukrainian countryside. The grain would then have to be shipped from EU countries to the Middle East and Africa, which is a laborious process.
The first to move was Poland, which, while reaffirming its close alliance with Kiev, decided to temporarily ban imports of wheat. Immediately afterwards, Budapest announced that imports “of wheat and various other Ukrainian agricultural products will be blocked until June 30”. Bulgaria has stated that it is considering the same restrictions: “Citizens’ interests must be protected”.
Irritated Brussels Brussels did not like these initiatives. “Trade policy falls under the exclusive competence of the EU, unilateral measures are not acceptable,” the Commission reminded, stressing the need “in such difficult times to coordinate and harmonize decisions within the EU”. The question of Ukrainian wheat comes on top of the still unresolved issue of the conditional rule of law mechanism affecting Warsaw and especially Budapest, which has frozen European funds. While Poland remains one of Kiev’s staunchest allies, Viktor Orban sees the wheat issue as another way to distance himself from European politics.
The EU proposal In the next two months – the moratorium on grain tariffs expires at the end of June, but Brussels has proposed to extend it by another year – the Commission still has to find a solution. In the past few days, the EU Commission had proposed a compensation fund of over 56 million for EU farmers affected by the wheat oversupply. But it’s not enough for the Eastern European countries, also because one of Warsaw’s goals is to achieve a kind of forced redistribution of grain within the Union.