Poland to revise import quotas regulation for Ukraine

The European Parliament has made a decision to revise the agreement on free trade with Ukraine to reduce the uncontrolled import of chicken from Ukraine, EPravda informs with reference to the Polish Interia Fakty.

Polish MEP Jarosław Wałęsa believes that this practice leads in the wrong direction and destroys trust.

“We understand the situation with Ukraine, we are for Ukraine, for the farmers, for the real producers. But we cannot accept actions that take advantages of loopholes (in legislation) and are of some combinative nature,” the politician stressed.

As it became known, the European Commission reached an agreement with Ukraine on changing the agreement on a free trade zone, the purpose of which is to limit the uncontrolled import of chicken to the EU. As a result, imports of bone-in meat from Ukraine, as shown by the data presented at the Committee meeting, increased from 3.7 thou. tons in 2016 to 50 thou. tons in 2018.

In turn, the German MEP Thomas Waitz criticized the proposal of the European Commission to supplement the quota by another 50 thou. tons. In his opinion, the European Commission proposes to legalize an illegal situation.

The EU is considering the possibility of increasing the quota for Ukraine regarding the chicken exports. A representative of the Commission, who attended the meeting, noted that increasing the quota is a rational decision. He stressed that the export of chicken meat from the EU to Ukraine reached 180 thou. tons, while in the opposite direction — 120 thou. tons.

The decision on further actions will be taken at a meeting of the political groups' coordinators.

As previously reported, since the start of 2019, Ukrainian exporters had already fully filled four tariff quotas for supplies to the European Union.

The infographic guide Agribusiness of Ukraine 2017/18 is available by the link.