Europe exported 2.5 million tons of Russian grain last year

The European Union is taking further steps to limit imports of Russian grain.

European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski said this, Ukrinform writes.

According to him, the EU has recently established “certain barriers” that reduce the import of agricultural products from the Russian Federation.

“The total volume of such imports throughout the EU was about 2.5 million tons in 2022 – 1 million tons of grain and 1.5 million tons of sunflower. In 2023, this volume remained almost unchanged. The largest importer of Russian grain was Italy – 478,000 tons, followed by Latvia – 360,000 tons, Lithuania also received a certain amount, now it refuses to continue such imports,” said Wojciechovsky.

According to him, Estonia also imported a small share of Russian grain products last year. For Poland, the volume of such imports was 3,500 tons of grain and 4,000 tons of sunflowers, which in general is a “very small” volume of agricultural imports.

Wojciechovsky reminded that food trade with the Russian Federation remains a sensitive issue for the EU.

“Now we are open to the introduction of restrictions on agricultural imports from Russia. But we must remember that trade goes both ways. The European Union exported €7 billion worth of agricultural goods to Russia in 2023 and imported €2 billion worth of goods from there. We have to take this factor into account,” said the European Commissioner.

As previously reported by USM, 5 European countries are calling for a ban on the import of Russian grain to the EU.