EU will lift customs duties on Ukrainian goods when war ends

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The European Union is preparing to cancel tariff exemptions for imports of goods from Ukraine in the coming weeks, according to European officials quoted by The Financial Times.

According to the source, the EU is to stop the preferential, duty-free regime introduced for Ukraine after the launch of the Russian invasion in February 2022, in addition to a free trade agreement.

The preferential regime, which allows the import of most Ukrainian goods into the EU without customs duties, expires in three weeks, on June 6. The bloc decided to terminate the special trade agreement after the authorities in Warsaw presented such an initiative, citing the interests of Polish farmers, IPN reports.

In the future, the European Union plans to introduce transitional measures, which will remain in place while the parties update the general trade agreement.

The transition proposal was recently presented to EU countries and would drastically reduce the number of duty-free rates for agricultural products and split the annual rate, exempted from customs duties into 12 monthly installments, officials told The Financial Times. According to them, these measures will have the greatest impact on corn, sugar, honey and poultry. Thus, the duty-free rate for corn will decrease from 4.7 million tonnes to 650,000 tons, the rate for poultry – from 57,100 to 40,000, and for sugar – from 109,000 to 40,700.

A spokesman for the European Commission confirmed that the preferential regime for Ukrainian agricultural products will not be resumed because the parties are working on the revision of the free trade agreement between the European Union and Ukraine. The official added that possible transitional measures are being considered if the negotiations are not completed by June 6.

“It is a very bad signal for Ukraine. The search for the solution will last at least until October,” the Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade Bernd Lange told The Financial Times.

The government in Kiev estimated that returning to pre-war trade conditions would reduce state revenues by €3.5 billion a year.

The preferential regime of exemption from customs duties for agricultural products from Ukraine, in the context of the war, was applied to poultry, wheat and sugar. Most of the supplies passed through EU Member States to Africa and Asia.

Farmers in Poland, France and other European countries have spoken out against duty-free imports, arguing that Ukrainian exports led to lower domestic prices. The Polish authorities have repeatedly banned the import of Ukrainian grain through Poland, in breach of European Union rules.

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