EU Says Ukraine's Boost Of Agricultural Exports Hurting European Farmers

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st January, 2023) Ukraine significantly increased the export of agricultural products to the European Union in 2022, which caused problems for some EU countries with the sale of their own products, European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski said on Monday.

"Compared to 2021, in 2022 we can observe the increase of the import to the EU of the products from Ukraine ... It creates some problems in neighboring countries with Ukraine," Wojciechowski said at a press conference.

Ukraine's export of wheat grew from 287,000 tonnes in 2021 to more than 2.8 million tonnes in 2022, while corn exports increased from about 7.3 million tonnes to 12 million tonnes, the EU commissioner said.

On the one hand, this shows the effectiveness of the solidarity corridors initiative, and on the other hand, the EU needs to solve the problem for farmers from Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, and Slovakia who now have difficulties with selling their products, Wojciechowski added.

Wojciechowski noted that the EU was not discussing the possibility of imposing restrictions on the import of agricultural products from Ukraine.

"There was no initiative to stop or reduce imports, to create barriers for import from Ukraine. No. But we need to support the farmers affected by this situation," Wojciechowski said.

According to him, one of the solutions to the problem could be the activation of the anti-crisis reserve, but not all EU member states supported this proposal.