The EU’s additional liberalization through autonomous trade measures ceased on June 6, but the free trade regime between Ukraine and the bloc remains in place.
This was stated on Facebook by First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, Yulia Svyrydenko.
According to her, the transition to the trade regime with the EU in 2021 means that all trade remains free except for 40 categories of agricultural products, which are subject to tariff quotas.
Svyrydenko emphasized that unrestricted trade experience showed that for 17 out of the 40 tariff quotas, trade volumes exceeded the 2021 quota levels.
“Therefore, for 23 products, the restoration of quotas will not be a limitation — for example, garlic, for which the quota was 500 tons, but last year we exported only 235 tons,” the minister added.
She noted that even for products whose trade volumes exceed quotas, the return to the 2021 EU trade regime will only partially affect exports.
“In particular, corn exports to the EU before 2022 reached a record 14 million tons despite a formal quota of 650 thousand tons. This is because the EU does not apply duties on corn imports at all (except for Russian corn).
Products like honey are also exported with duties paid — this phenomenon has been known since the first year of the free trade agreement,” Svyrydenko said, adding that wheat has global demand.
She acknowledged that there are products for which restoring tariff quotas will mean export reductions, the most notable being sugar, with a quota of 20 thousand tons but exports last year totaling 311 thousand tons.
“Even exporters of sensitive products will not notice actual changes because the EU ‘reset’ the volume counts for quota products and started counting anew,” Svyrydenko noted.
She added that the lack of concessions from the EU regarding quota revisions affects trade worth $3.5 billion and could reduce revenues by $800 million, but this is the worst-case “black” scenario.
Svyrydenko stressed that active negotiations with the EU are ongoing to transition from autonomous trade measures to an updated and more liberalized free trade agreement.
