Achi news desk-
On Friday, the European Commission presented a proposal to raise to 95 € / house the duty on grain imports into the EU from the Russian Federation and Belarus, especially wheat flour and sunflower, which will help to avoid destabilizing the European market and prevent the Russian Federation from using export revenues to finance the war in Ukraine. This is reported by GrainTrade, writes agronews.ua.
“In 2023, the Russian Federation exported 1.3 billion euros of such products to the EU, so higher tariffs will deprive the Russian economy of an important source of income,” the EC said.
The head of the EC, Ursula von der Leyen, said that the increase in duties on imports from the Russian Federation will reduce the risks for European farmers.
Now the proposal must be considered by the Council of the EU, after which an appropriate decision will be made.
Rusagrotrans said it will be very difficult for Europe to replace supplies from the Russian Federation of commodities such as sunflower meal, pulp or flax. In 2023, the Russian Federation exported almost 4.9 million tonnes of agricultural products to the EU, of which 1.54 million tonnes were cereal crops, mainly soft and hard wheat, rye, corn, and barley, delivered to the Italy, Spain, Greece, Belgium and Germany.
The share of supplies to the EU in total Russian grain exports in 2023 was only 2%, with sunflower meal and rapeseed mainly supplied to Germany, Denmark and France, pulses (mainly peas) to Spain, Italy and Denmark, beet pulp to the Nordic and Western European countries, linseed – to Belgium.
Grain exports from the Russian Federation to the EU increased from 970,000 tonnes in 2022 to 1.54 million tonnes in 2023, the highest figure since 2018, when it reached 2 million tonnes. Estonia increased its imports of Russian grain the most (by 1,600%), Italy – (386%), the Netherlands (138%) and Poland (107.5%). In absolute terms, Italy (473.7 thousand tons), Latvia (420 thousand tons), Greece (264.6 thousand tons), Spain (256.6 thousand tons), Poland (12.7 thousand tons) became the leaders in import of Russian grain compared to 6.1 thousand tons last year).
We will remind that Ukraine has reduced grain exports to Poland to 1 million tons in 2023, which is significantly less than the 2.4 million tons introduced in 2022, when sea exports were blocked.
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