Mahaz News
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Farmers in central and japanese Europe protested this week in opposition to the affect of low-cost Ukrainian grain imports, which have undercut home costs and hit the gross sales of native producers.
Protesters blocked site visitors and border checkpoints with tractors alongside the border between Romania and Bulgaria, in an effort to stop Ukrainian vehicles from coming into their nation, based on native news shops.
Local producers say they can’t compete with the value of Ukrainian grain and have demanded compensation from the European Commission.
Ukraine, usually known as the “breadbasket of Europe” because of the huge portions of grain it produces, had its Black Sea ports blockaded by Russia following the invasion in February 2022.
Fearing that the scenario was “threatening global food security,” the European Commission arrange what it known as “solidarity lanes” in May to facilitate exports.
The Commission additionally briefly eradicated all duties and quotas on Ukraine’s exports, permitting a glut of low-cost Ukrainian grain to move into Europe.
This has precipitated “huge market distortions” in neighboring international locations, based on European farmers’ affiliation Copa-Cogeca.
Anger grew after the European Commission introduced a draft resolution to increase duty-free and quota-free imports of Ukrainian grain till June 2024, prompting Polish agriculture minister Henryk Kowalcyzk to resign from his publish Wednesday.
In Kowalczyk’s resignation assertion, he stated that the Polish authorities – together with these of Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria – had submitted a request to the European Commission to “activate the protection clause in the field of duty-free and quota-free imports of grain from Ukraine.”
“Bulgaria is in solidarity with Ukraine, but a local glut is being created on the agricultural market, because instead of export corridors our countries are becoming warehouses,” Bulgaria’s agriculture minister Yavor Gechev stated.
The National Association of Bulgarian Grain Producers stated “Bulgarian farmers’ warehouses are full of stagnant produce. There is no market for Bulgarian grain.”
According to their information, 40% of final yr’s grain and sunflower harvest stays unsold.
Romanian farmers are additionally feeling the pressure. At protests in Bucharest on Friday, Liliana Piron, govt director of the League of Romanian Agriculture Producers’ Associations, stated farmers have “reached a point where they feel they can no longer face the costs” of “unfair competition” from Ukraine.
“We are less than three months away from the new harvest and the danger is real, that the goods we will have ready this season will not be able to be sold at prices above production costs,” Piron stated, based on RadioFree Europe.
“We will witness a chain of bankruptcies of Romanian farmers,” she added.
In response to the rising unrest, the European Commission final month proposed help measures value 56.3 million euros (round $61.3 million) for Bulgarian, Polish and Romanian farmers “to compensate affected farmers for the economic loss due to increased imports.”
“The trade disruptions incurred by the Russian aggression should not take place at the expense of farmers from neighboring countries,” the Commission stated in an announcement.
Source web site: www.cnn.com
