Ukraine in the European Union? These are quite distant plans for now, although in practice some steps have already been taken. How will these two agricultural worlds find each other in one Community? Is it even possible? We ask Janusz Wojciechowski, EU Commissioner for Agriculture, about this.
In an interview with farmer.pl, Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski emphasizes that we have to take into account strong competition from Ukraine, although not in all areas of agricultural production.
– We have experience in trade relations with Ukraine from before the war, i.e. in 2021, when it was already allowed to import, for example, corn or rapeseed without customs duties, but there was no such import for a simple reason: it was not profitable for Ukraine to sell to Poland. It had other significant markets open in the world, such as China, India, Indonesia, Egypt and Turkey. These were the main export directions. The war changed all that. I think that in normal conditions, which will prevail one day, we must take into account great competition from Ukraine when it comes to grain production. However, in other sectors, especially breeding, Ukraine is very behind Poland. They have very low milk and meat production for this country. It is Poland that exports dairy products and meat products to Ukraine.
Problematic agroholdings
At the same time, Commissioner Wojciechowski emphasizes that Ukraine has already been invited to accession negotiations to the European Union. Therefore, it is important to establish specific protective clauses for the EU agricultural sector, and transitional periods for some agricultural sectors and industries should be long. The Commissioner also emphasizes the necessary restrictions for Ukrainian agroholdings.
– There is definitely a problem with these large Ukrainian agroholdings. They should under no circumstances receive EU funds, the so-called capping should be mandatory for them, i.e. maximum payments should not exceed EUR 100,000. In addition, there must be appropriate transitional periods, these protective clauses should remain in force for the necessary period, maintained as long as possible (…). I think that in this case even a protection period of several years may be insufficient, rather several years. Poland had transitional periods of 10, 12 years on various issues, so I think Ukraine should also join the EU on such transitional conditions. This is quite obvious, so you definitely need to control it and it cannot be a “happy” membership under any circumstances.
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