European Council supports extending trade liberalization for Ukraine - Ukrainian deputy PM

MOSCOW. March 25 (Interfax) - The European Council supported in general the yearlong extension of trade liberalization for Ukraine, which provides preferential terms of Ukrainian exports to the European Union, at a meeting on March 21-22, Ukrainian media quoted Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishina as saying.

"The European Council has voted for the trade liberalization decision," Stefanishina said at the Exporters Summit in Kiev on Friday, adding that a number of technicalities still needed to be addressed.

"The EU leaders have affirmed the importance of continuing autonomous trade preferences. The coordination process goes on," Stefanishina said.

She noted that the conclusion drawn at the end of the European Council meeting called for further work on the resolution of issues related to autonomous trade preferences for Ukraine without delay and in a "fair and balanced manner."

"At the same time, the need to find a long-term solution within the framework of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and the free trade area was declared," Stefanishina said.

As reported, the European Council and the European Parliament have reached a preliminary agreement to suspend import duties and quotas for Ukrainian exports to the European Union for another year, until June 5, 2025, while enhancing protective measures for sensitive agricultural products.

In particular, the new protective measures compel the European Commission to automatically reinstate tariff quotas should the imports of eggs, sugar, oats, corn, cereals and honey exceed the arithmetic average of 2022-2023 imports.

Meanwhile major European agricultural associations and farmer unions say the proposed measures are insufficient to protect the EU market from imports of Ukrainian agricultural products and demand tougher restrictions. They insist, in particular, on basing the Ukrainian import limits on the data for the pre-crisis year 2021, when such imports were minimal, instead of the data for 2022-2023, the two crisis years proposed by the European Commission. In addition, farmer associations propose adding wheat to the list of sensitive agricultural products, the export of which will be limited by the protective mechanism.