Our Farmers Will Lose Out on EU-Ukraine Agricultural Deal

The agreement between the EU and Ukraine on the regulation of European imports of Ukrainian agricultural products will have extremely negative consequences for Hungarian farmers, said Minister of Agriculture István Nagy on Monday in Brussels.

At a press conference following a meeting of EU ministers responsible for agriculture, the politician said that a coalition of countries bordering Ukraine had been formed last week with the aim of jointly seeking a separate agreement.

He called the deal unacceptable, as it would largely increase the influx of Ukrainian goods instead of the promised 10-25 percent.

As an example, he mentioned that honey imports could go up sixfold, poultry from 90,000 to 120,000 tons, eggs from 6,000 to 18,000 tons, and wheat from 1 to 1.3 million tons. In the case of corn, complete liberalization will take effect, allowing unlimited duty-free imports from Ukraine into the EU, he pointed out.

In the Minister’s view, this is unacceptable, thus the coalition has requested individual protective measures, such as preventing the price of Ukrainian products from falling below the EU’s cost price.

He emphasized the importance of the mirror clause, which stipulates that Ukraine will only meet EU quality standards by 2028. However, two years is a very long time in agriculture, and if production becomes impossible, many farmers will not restart production again.

István Nagy warned that the imminent conclusion of the EU-Mercosur agreement could further exacerbate the situation, with the combined effect of the two agreements making it impossible for European farmers to continue. As he put it, agriculture cannot be shut down overnight, but once production ceases, it is not certain that it will restart.

The minister also highlighted the importance of compensation measures, citing the measures related to Mercosur as an example.