Subsidies for the transport of grain from Ukraine to ports are an idea to improve the situation on the grain market in the EU, which Janusz Wojciechowski, the EU Commissioner for Agriculture, submitted some time ago. Farmer.p. asked the commissioner whether this proposal was still under consideration.
Janusz Wojciechowski, EU Commissioner for Agriculture, officially presented, during a Friday press conference, the draft legislative changes to the Common Agricultural Policy planned by the European Commission, which will be presented to the European Parliament and the European Council (i.e. EU member states) for approval in the coming days.
Subsidies for the transport of grain from Ukraine to ports
Radosław Iwański, editor-in-chief of farmer.pl, also asked the commissioner during this conference whether his idea for subsidies for the transport of grain from Ukraine to ports, i.e. a proposal that could improve the situation on the grain market, including the Polish one, is being considered at the EU forum. , by increasing the export of surpluses lying in warehouses.
– When it comes to subsidies for the transport of grain from Ukraine through Poland or other countries to sea ports, this is my proposal, which has been submitted to the EC, has been and is the subject of consideration, althoughWhat we need above all is Ukraine’s good will. Ukraine should join such a project and then we would be able to support the export of grain from Ukraine outside the EU at a not too great cost – said Commissioner Wojciechowski.
He added that when it comes to healing the situation on the grain market, there are also ideas that are simply unrealistic to implement, such as the idea that the EU will buy 20 million tons of grain and export it to Africa.
– There are also farmers in Africa. And they will be as happy about these deliveries of free grain from Europe as Polish farmers are about deliveries of cheap grain from Ukraine. Let us not treat Africa as a region that operates outside the rules of the normal world, the commissioner emphasized.
And he added:
– Of course, there is a humanitarian aid program that provides food aid to African countries, but that is what money is spent on. This program purchases grain from the market and delivers it to places where it is needed. In 2022 and 2023, the largest donor to this program was Germany.
Export subsidies
Similarly utopian – according to Commissioner Wojciechowski – is the idea of subsidies for grain exports.
– Export subsidies are the greatest abuse in world trade. We must not subsidize production, let alone export. The World Trade Organization will take immediate action against countries that do this. The European Union is already under special scrutiny from the WTO due to direct subsidies. The fact that, for example, eco-schemes and CAP conditionality are being introduced in the EU allows us to defend direct subsidies with the argument that we do not subsidize production, but to care for the environment – explained Janusz Wojciechowski.
The Commissioner also referred to information appearing in the public space about grain stocks in Poland.
– According to EC analyses, it is not entirely true that there are 9 million tons of grain stocks in Poland. It’s March, and the “alarmistic” data are still from February. There is still a long period until the end of the year, with the harvest of over 30 million tons of grain, these 9 million tons are nothing extraordinary. Especially since Poland has no stocks of grain for consumption. There are feed reserves and I think that under normal trade it should be exported from Poland. So, in the light of the EC’s analyses, the situation in Poland does not look as dramatic as some people in Poland paint it – said Janusz Wojciechowski.
– .
