On Monday, import rules for Ukrainian products will again be on the agenda for the European agriculture ministers at their monthly meeting, this time in Luxembourg.
Negotiations began this year regarding the possible accession of Ukraine to the European Union. If that happens, Ukraine will have to impose restrictions on its own agricultural sector to join the EU, wrote the European news site Politico last week. Import tariffs on Ukrainian agricultural products are necessary, according to the weekly, to correct the “imbalance” in the trade balance between Ukraine and the European Union.
To date, Poland is one of the major agricultural producing EU countries, but neighboring Ukraine’s farmland is much larger, the soil is far more fertile, and wages are lower. It is expected that if Ukraine joins, new arrangements must also be made regarding the current distribution of EU agricultural subsidies.
Minister Siekierski spoke last week at a congress in Warsaw on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Poland’s EU membership. It has been twenty years since ten East and Central European countries — after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the former Soviet Union — joined the EU.
Siekierski pointed to the progress that EU membership has brought to the Polish agricultural sector and rural areas since then. According to him, Ukraine’s accession as an agricultural powerhouse does not have to be just a threat for Poland but also offers opportunities. Minister Siekierski emphasized the important role of the Polish food processing industry. Earlier, German BMEL Minister Cem Özdemir expressed similar sentiments during a working visit to Poland.
The Polish minister said it is worth fully exploiting Ukraine’s raw material potential and embarking on joint Polish-Ukrainian ventures, guaranteed by the governments of both countries, to develop joint exports.