The EU’s Agriculture and Fisheries Council, made up of ministers of all member states, is looking to export almost all of Ukraine’s farm produce via so-called ‘solidarity lanes’ through neighboring EU countries. Ukraine is among the world’s top three grain exporters and is popularly known as the ‘breadbasket of Europe.’
Following last week’s pullout by Russia of the Black Sea grain deal, under which Ukraine was allowed to move its crops through the Black Sea, Ukraine’s grain storage facilities at the Ukrainian ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk, as well as its ports on the Danube River, have been deemed valid targets by Moscow.
With its sea and river routes increasingly non-viable for moving its produce—which the IMF estimates could drive a possible 15% rise in grain prices—Ukraine, finding itself in a pinch, is looking to the EU and its neighboring member states to come to its aid.
While some of the EU states whose farmers have seen prices for their produce depressed due to a glut of Ukrainian imports are wary, Brussels seems game.
“We are ready to export almost everything,” EU agriculture commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski said during a press conference on Tuesday, July 25th.
In May, the EU allowed five countries close to Ukraine—Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia—to ban domestic sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, and oilseeds until September 15th, while allowing their transit through these nations’ territories so Ukraine’s produce could reach its markets.
However, a Poland-led loose alliance of these nations seeks to extend that ban until the end of this year, a demand that if not met, some warn they will satisfy unilaterally.
Wojciechowski, who said he had spoken to several agriculture ministers on the sidelines of the Tuesday meeting, said the EU will review that ban, the outcome of which would be presented in August.
When asked about the mood in the Council following Poland’s demand for the ban’s extension, Luis Planas Puchades, Spain’s acting minister of agriculture, fisheries and food said there were “mixed feelings.”
Some member states “supported the Polish initiative, others have been vocal in opposing it, while others have not taken a position,” he said, a statement which would imply a separate deal might need to be hammered out between the five EU countries and Ukraine.
After meeting with his counterparts, Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus told reporters that “the interests of our farmers are paramount for us,” and that Poland’s decisions were “not against anyone; they are first and foremost for our farmers.” With the October elections fast approaching, Poland’s incumbent government is keen on keeping Poland’s farmers, a key constituency, on board.
Telus went on to state that there was “no way that after September 15th Ukraine grain will enter Poland,” since Poland has “quite a lot of grain, prices of grain already today are low … it would completely destabilize our market.”
The stance taken by Poland, even though it is Ukraine’s staunchest ally on the European continent concerning its war with Russia, has only drawn Kyiv’s ire. “Our position is clear: blocking [Ukrainian] exports by land after September 15th, when the relevant restrictions expire, is unacceptable in any form,” Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky said in a July 24th Telegram post.
In his nightly address, he went even further, calling any extension of the restrictions “outright non-European.”
During Tuesday’s press conference, Wojciechowski mentioned that the Agrifish Council was mulling a—less controversy-laden—EU plan which would cover the additional costs which the transport of Ukraine’s grain by land would incur.
He would soon “present this position in the Commission,” so that a solution could be found “using EU money.”
On the matter, Telus drily remarked that “the European Commission always has funding for so many different things, so it can also find money to subsidize transportation.”
Stressing Poland’s bonafides in being “a big supporter of helping Ukraine,” which he did not think anyone doubted, he however noted that “support should be spread across all countries, not just Poland and [other] border countries.”
In the meantime, as reported by Reuters, EU member Lithuania has asked the European Commission to devise a plan which would allow Ukrainian grain to move through five ports in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Ukraine and the Baltic states’ railways are incompatible with the one used in Poland, the only practical route between the countries, it says.
Taken together, the five ports are said to have a combined grain export capacity of 25 million tonnes.
