Five EU states unhappy with new trade agreement with Ukraine

Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania are dissatisfied with Ukraine’s new trade agreement with the European Union.

This is an agreement that is being prepared on the basis of a deep and comprehensive free trade area (DCFTA) between Ukraine and the EU, reports “European Pravda”.

Five EU states raised this issue during the meeting of the EU Council on Agriculture on July 14.

Thus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania believe that the new trade agreement with Ukraine, which was proposed by the European Commission instead of the “trade visa-free regime”, which expired in early June, could allegedly destabilize the EU’s agricultural markets.

According to European Commissioner for Agriculture Christoph Hansen, the revised agreement with Ukraine was discussed “at the request of a group of several states”. He noted that the 2016 DCFTA was supposed to be reviewed in 2021, but this became impossible due to the full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation.

“Today, different views were expressed on this agreement, and I consider it useful to have a frank discussion in this format. I presented the facts about this agreement and reported that it meets the interests of our farmers,” Hansen commented.

However, according to the publication, five EU states continue to insist on changing the draft amendments to the DCFTA agreement already agreed with Ukraine.

Earlier, USM reported that the EU increased quotas for Ukrainian agricultural products within the framework of the new trade agreement.