Hungary will maintain the embargo on imports of agricultural products from Ukraine until an international solution to this problem is found. This was announced by the head of the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture, Istvan Nad, after a meeting with colleagues from EU countries in Brussels.
“Hungary will maintain the national import ban on products from Ukraine until an appropriate international solution is found,” he told reporters at the end of a meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council.
Nagy said he also had a meeting with Valdis Dombrovskis, first deputy president of the European Commission and EU Commissioner for Trade. According to him, “they came to the conclusion that Hungary should conclude a bilateral agreement with Ukraine, within which the Ukrainian side does not have a Ukrainian Grains supply and Hungary will not receive a Ukrainian one”.
The minister confirmed that he, together with his colleagues from Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, wanted to urge the European Commission to reintroduce tariffs and quotas on agricultural products from Ukraine and to oblige Ukrainian agricultural producers to comply with EU standards . “I see no other option than reintroducing quotas for sensitive products. “In addition, it is necessary to protect the market for goods for which quotas were not established in the Association Agreement (between the EU and Ukraine of 2014),” the MTI news agency quoted Nad as saying.
The head of the Ministry of Agriculture said that the EU leadership is not ready to protect the interests of European farmers, puts the interests of Ukraine first, leaves trade borders completely open and thus destroys the Community's agricultural market. “If we break the triple unity of competitiveness, quality of our products and food safety, the system will not be sustainable,” warned Nad.
Central European countries were forced to impose a ban on agricultural imports from Ukraine in the fall of 2023 because the European Commission refused to lift an embargo that expired on September 15 on four types of grain and oilseeds - Wheat, Corn, Rapeseeds and Sunflower seeds – to be extended to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The Hungarian government unilaterally maintained the embargo and extended it to 20 other Ukrainian agricultural products, including grain, meat, eggs, vegetable oil, vegetables and honey. Poland and Slovakia also announced that they would maintain the ban on grain deliveries from Ukraine.
Source: TASS (Russian)
