Bulgaria will receive EUR 16 Million in Compensation due to large Imports of Grain from Ukraine

Business » INDUSTRY | March 22, 2023, Wednesday // 13:08
Bulgaria: Bulgaria will receive EUR 16 Million in Compensation due to large Imports of Grain from Ukraine @Pixabay

The European Commission will provide 56 million euros to support farmers in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, affected by the increased export of agricultural products from Ukraine, said Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, quoted by Bloomberg. "We're seeing an increase in supplies, a huge increase in imports to the border countries," he said.

Bulgaria and Poland will receive 16 and 30 million euros respectively due to the fact that the combination of their domestic production and imports from Ukraine exceeds the average of the five years before the Russian military operation, Romania has been allocated 10 million euros as it has become in a center for grain exported from Ukraine to Europe along the "routes of solidarity".

Hungary and Slovakia also faced increases in Ukrainian grain imports, but they received no aid because their combined imports and domestic production did not exceed the average of the five years before hostilities.

The EU and Ukraine signed a comprehensive free trade area agreement in 2016 that suspended duties and tariffs on about half of Ukraine's agricultural products.

Ukraine's exports to the EU of other products were eased last May for a year as part of "solidarity routes" - these measures were taken by Europe to stimulate the economy of the Russian-attacked country and gradually integrate Ukraine into the European Union's internal market. union.

Such measures led to the fact that food imports increased significantly in the last year - from several thousand to several million tons. For example, in November 2021, 6 thousand tons of Ukrainian corn were imported into Poland, a year later - 1.64 million tons, according to the data of the European Council.

At the same time, Polish farmers face an embargo on supplies to Belarus and limited access to the Egyptian market, the document says, and goods from that country do not reach Western European countries that need Ukrainian goods.

"There are now increasing signs that if the increase (of production from Ukraine) is not curbed, it could cause serious difficulties for EU producers in the agricultural sector," the European Council document said.

At the end of January, several European countries, including Bulgaria, offered to pay compensation to farmers; "sealing" of imported grain along delivery routes from Ukraine so that it does not enter the domestic market in the country and harm local farmers, but is sent in transit to markets that need it; to help Kyiv in ways that will not interfere with the EU's agricultural sector, etc.

All EU countries explicitly emphasized that they continue to support Ukraine in the conflict with Russia.

On Tuesday, the Bulgarian Minister of Agriculture Yavor Gechev told the protesting grain producers near the village of Gorna Studena in Svishtov that Bulgaria will receive 16 million euros from the European Commission, with which to compensate the grain producers for their idle production after the duty-free import of Ukrainian grain, BNR reported.

"There are large quantities of Ukrainian grain and unrealized Bulgarian grain in Bulgaria. As of the end of February, there is a total of 1.169 million tons more of sunflower, wheat and corn in our country than last year," Gechev pointed out. According to him, there are 1.313 million tons of sunflower, which is 420 thousand tons more than last year. In the case of wheat, the quantities are 660 thousand tons more, corn is 89 thousand tons more. This confirms the state's thesis that Bulgaria suffers more than other EU countries from Ukrainian grain imports, said Agriculture Minister Yavor Gechev.

He also said that if he could have stopped imports from Ukraine as a minister, he would have done it by now. And he specified that Bulgaria is a state of solidarity with Ukraine, but Bulgarian producers cannot sell wheat at 42 cents per kilogram, and sunflowers at 80 cents per kg, which is below cost.

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