MOSCOW, April 28 The European Commission has agreed with five EU countries to lift the ban on imports of agricultural products from Ukraine, Vice-President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis said on Twitter .
«The EC has reached an agreement with Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia regarding agri-food products from Ukraine,» he said.
The main points of the deal, according to Dombrovskis, were agreed with the Kiev authorities and include: Sofia, Budapest;
At the end of March, the prime ministers of these countries asked the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to intervene in the crisis caused by the influx of grain from Ukraine. As noted in their letter, «there has been an unprecedented increase in imports of cereals, oilseeds, eggs, poultry, sugar, apple juice, berries, apples, flour, honey and pasta.»
In mid-April, Poland and Hungary, amid protests from local farmers, suspended imports of Ukrainian agricultural products. Then Slovakia and Bulgaria made the same decision.
In June 2022, the EU suspended the collection of duties on all goods coming from Ukraine for one year to help local authorities increase exports. In addition, since March last year, the European Commission launched the so-called green corridors — land and river routes for the export of Ukrainian grain.
In reality, due to problems with logistics, the bulk of agricultural products began to settle in the EU countries neighboring Ukraine, which is already by the fall of last year led to a crisis of overproduction. For six months, Brussels could not offer any measures to resolve the situation.