EU plans to impose duties on cereals imported from Russia and Belarus

Customs duties on cereals imported from Belarus and from Belarus are being prepared to do, or, aiming to appease farmers and some of its Member States, according to today’s report (19.3.2024) of the Financial Times. It is estimated that the European Commission will in the coming days announce the imposition of a duty of EUR 95 per tonne of cereals from Russia and Belarus, as noted in the report. It is also said that it is also planned to impose 50% duties on oil seeds and products produced by their processing. Farmers throughout the European Union are demanding that restrictions imposed on them under the Green Agreement on the treatment of climate change and that customs duties be imposed on the imported agricultural products of Ukraine again. These duties were lifted when the Russian army invaded Ukrainian territory, in February 2022. Farmers in neighbouring countries, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia – all three are EU Member States – stress that this decision has hit them hard, as it has pushed their product prices downward. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, where massive agricultural mobilisations are taking place in recent days, similar to that in the rest of the EU, has recommended that imports of agricultural products from Russia and Belarus be banned. Imports of products targeted amounted to 4 million tonnes in 2023, or about 1% of total consumption in the EU, which was a record, according to the Feinansial Times report.