Hungary proposes expanding traditional sea routes to handle Ukrainian agricultural exports

MOSCOW. June 26 (Interfax) - Hungary's Agriculture Minister Istvan Hagy is not satisfied with the functioning of the European Solidarity Lanes and believes that expanding the traditional maritime transport route, which today carries a mere 12% of Ukrainian agriculture products, will help ease the pressure on the European Union's internal markets.

"The current solidarity routes do not fulfill their role because the products are stuck in Ukraine's neighboring countries. Earlier we had 40,000-50,000 tonnes of grain left, now we are talking about 2.5 million tonnes. The goal is to expand the traditional sea transport route, which now transfers only 12% of Ukrainian products. This will reduce the burden on the overland route and will alleviate the pressure on the internal markets of the EU," Ukrainian media quoted Nagy as saying in a statement circulated by the Hungarian Agriculture Ministry.

Last week, Nagy visited Warsaw, where he asked the Polish foreign minister for a mandate to hold negotiations with Turkey on opening new maritime routes for grain exports on top of the three Black Sea ports operating under the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

It is important to maintain and broaden cooperation between the five EU member states that border Ukraine, Nagy said.

"We are inclined to continue cooperation [...] to find a pan-European solution to this problem," the Hungarian minister said.

Nagy highly assessed the joint efforts of five EU member countries - Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Poland and Hungary - in suspending the import of Ukrainian grain. Thanks to the joint execution of this will, "we can protect our borders and farmers today as a result of the European Union's measures rather than national measures," Nagy said, also expressing regret that the aforementioned restrictions will be in effect only until September 15.

The Hungarian and Polish ministers agreed that the period of restrictions running until September 15 is too short.

"For instance, the harvesting of corn will continue for a long time. That is why, we definitely need to push for an extension [of the ban]," Nagy said.

Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus, for his part, described Hungary's initiative to expand the Black Sea route as important, and said that Warsaw would support it. At the same time, he underscored the need to develop overland transport routes.

Telus highly assessed Hungary's contribution to the creation of the five countries' coalition on the grain issue. If it had not been for this group's efforts, the European Commission "would not have seen the problem at all," he said.

It is key to preserve this alliance, the Polish minister said.

"Together we can campaign not only for the issues that are important to our countries but also for the future of Europe," Telus said.

Once the crisis is over, the process of Ukraine's integration into the EU could continue, but "the issue of Ukrainian products will arise once again," Telus said. "If today we fail to get the European Commission to work out real tools to resolve this problem, it will entail unpleasant consequences," he said.

Telus also said that Nagy and he had agreed to arrange a meeting with Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Nikolai Solsky to try to find common solutions to the grain import problem.