EU agriculture ministers draw up routes for Ukrainian grain

The ministers of agriculture from twenty seven —from Spain was the General Secretary for Agriculture and Food, Fernando Miranda— went to Luxembourg yesterday with the intention of sealing the rift opened in recent weeks within the EU due to the entry of Ukrainian grain at low prices into the territory of the Community, which ended up bringing down the price of grain produced in countries like Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary or Bulgaria. This did not prevent representatives of states such as France or Spainwith a heavy weight of primary sectorwill recall the need to “have a common position” on a key issue for the grain market such as exports raw material from Ukraine. In this sense, Fernando Miranda emphasized “the importance of not adopting unilateral decisions and the need for the Commission to offer short-term, medium-term and long-term measures that enable solving the difficulties of farmers in different member states”.

French Minister Marc Fesneau, as well as leaders of agriculture in Finland, Latvia, Ireland or Croatiacriticized a veto on certain Ukrainian products that some eastern EU countries unilaterally announced in recent days, although Poland, a major ally of Ukraine within the bloc, backed down just days after the ban was passed.

Because as Fesneau said, according to Efe, “there cannot be solidarity expressed on behalf of the twenty-seven for five or six countries that could be affected by the increase in Ukrainian imports and, at the same time, that some countries within that package make unilateral decisions, and that these are not decisions made at the European level.

The meeting was held on the same day the Russian Ministry of Defense threatened again in violation of the international agreement that guarantees the export of grain through Ukrainian ports that open to the Black Sea. That leaves up in the air what will happen after May 18, the date on which it would, in theory, expire.

With all these open fronts, it seems that a good part of the representatives of agriculture present in Luxembourg agree on the need to cooperate with Ukraine in order to find a way out of raw material that it is not only important to maintain your war economy, but it is also important to balance it international grain market. At the same time, they understand the demands of the farmers who took to the streets in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia or Bulgaria in recent weeks. And although the executive branch of the Community has authority over trade policy, they have indirectly contributed to the mapping of Ukrainian grain routes with their proposals, depending on what happens in Black Sea.

new help

To calm the spirits of farmers who say they suffer from “unfair competition”, European Comission It is being considered to enable another 100 million euros from the agricultural reserve, which would be added to the 56.3 million financed from the same reserve for Bulgarian, Polish and Romanian farmers. In addition, an emergency mechanism could be articulated so that affected countries could veto Ukrainian grain in exchange for opening a transit corridor. But it seems that not all member states agree. France, for example, said that it should first be seen what the given 56.3 million euros were spent on.