European Parliament endorses extension of duty-free trade regime for Ukraine, enhancing EU agricultural sector's protection

BRUSSELS. April 23 (Interfax) - The European Parliament finally adopted the European Commission (EC)'s proposal on Tuesday to extend the liberal trade regime with Ukraine for another year, until June 5, 2025.

The adopted version of the document takes into account the Council of the EU's proposals to protect the European internal market.

The EU may impose emergency restrictions on particularly sensitive agricultural products, namely, poultry, eggs, sugar, oats, cereals, corn and honey as part of measures aimed at protecting the interests of European farmers. The negotiators agreed to extend the base period used as the basis for applying this automatic protection. However, if imports of these products exceed the average imports recorded in the second half of 2021 and throughout 2022 and 2023, the terms of supplies will be revised. In addition, the EC committed to step up monitoring of grain imports, in particular, wheat.

The legislative act should then be approved by the Council of the EU with subsequent publication in the EU Official Journal.

The EU has fully liberalized trade with Ukraine (the regime of the so-called autonomous trade measures) by temporarily suspending import duties, quotas and trade protection measures for imports from the country. These measures first took effect on June 4, 2022 and were later extended, last time, until June 5, 2024.

Mass protests of agricultural producers are taking place in many EU countries this year. The duty-free imports of agricultural products from Ukraine are among the main reasons for protest.