Hungary’s Minister of Agriculture Istvan Nagy announced that his country, joined by Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia, have appealed to the European Commission to end the increased quotas for agricultural products from Ukraine and to stop allowing Ukraine to flout EU market regulations.
“In a joint letter with my colleagues from Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, we called on Brussels to take action. The EU resolution regulating imports from Ukraine expires in June this year, so the European Commission must find a long-term solution to market problems caused by Ukrainian agricultural products,” he wrote, according to TASS.
The countries want to return to the EU quotas on Ukraine imports as they were before February 2022, and to require that Ukrainian agricultural products entering the EU comply with various safety and environmental standards of the EU.
“It will be interesting to see whether Brussels will take into account the interests of Eastern European farmers this time or betray them again, as it was in September 2023, when it did not extend the ban on [Ukrainian] imports to the EU,” said Nagy. “Hungary will maintain restrictions on the import of Ukrainian agricultural products as long as it is necessary to protect Hungarian farmers.”
Hungary has repeatedly said that European agriculture is suffering losses due to low-priced Ukrainian products flooding the market. In 2022, the EU ended customs duties and quotas on the import of agricultural goods from Ukraine.
