The European Commission intends to extend the suspension of import quotas and customs duties for Ukrainian exports to the EU for another year. Despite this, official Brussels proposes to include fuses for agricultural products there.
The EU can still cancel tariffs for Ukraine again
According to the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, she and her team propose to official Kyiv to extend preferential trade conditions by suspending import duties and quotas for another year.
However, what is essential to understand is that the proposal included a "reinforced safeguard" to protect the interests of European farmers.
To this end, and given the significant increase in imports of certain agricultural products from Ukraine to the EU in 2022-2023, the renewed autonomous trade measures contain an enhanced safeguard mechanism. This allows for a quick response in the event of significant distortions in the EU market or the market of one of the member states, the statement said.
The EU revealed the details of its new proposal
As Ursula von der Leyen reports, for three types of products — poultry meat, eggs and sugar — an "emergency braking" mechanism is foreseen to "stabilize imports at the level of average import volumes in 2022-2023."
If these import volumes are exceeded, import tariffs will begin to apply.
In addition, in the same proposal, official Brussels proposes to extend the suspension of customs duties on imports from Moldova for another year.
The proposal must be further considered by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, a body made up of representatives of all 27 EU member states.
The EU's preferential trade regime with Ukraine has been in effect since June 4, 2022, and will continue in 2023.
