From July 1, the EU is raising duties on grains and oilseeds from Russia and Belarus to a level “which will effectively suspend the import of these products.”
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This is discussed on the website of the European Council. In most cases, duties on Russian and Belarusian exports to the European Union will increase to 95 euros per ton.
These measures will not affect the transit of these products through the EU to third countries. The regulation will be published in the Official Journal of the EU and the measures will come into force on 1 July 2024.
The initial proposal to introduce duties was made by the European Commission on March 22. The duties are intended to prevent destabilization of the EU market in the event of an increase in supplies of Russian grain products to the EU market, to prevent the illegal export of Ukrainian grain misappropriated by Russia, and also to prevent the Russian Federation from using income from exports to the EU to finance the war against Ukraine.
According to the European Commission, in 2023 Russia exported about 1.3 billion euros worth of such products to the EU.
The European Council approved this plan on May 18, while at the same time the leaders of the European Union and its member countries called for guarantees that these measures would not affect transit to third countries.
According to Brussels, the EU farming community has expressed concern about the risk of destabilization of the EU market due to a potentially significant redirection of Russian grain products there.
Russia’s role as the world’s leading grain exporter, combined with its willingness to use food exports as a geopolitical tool, indicates that it is high, the European Commission says on its website.
The tariff increase also applies to Belarus, taking into account its close ties with the Russian Federation.
In addition, by extending the new measure to Belarus, the European Union will not allow Russia to use Belarus to circumvent new tariffs and send its goods to the EU market, the European Commission explained.
Until now, EU duties on these goods have been set at zero or very low levels. The European Union also, as a matter of principle, did not impose sanctions on agricultural goods from Russia and Belarus, so as not to aggravate the food crisis in third countries, provoked by a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s leading grain exporters.
Source: Racurs
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