site.btaBulgarian Agriculture Minister Raises Ukraine Farm Imports Issues with Senior European Commission Official

Agriculture and Food Minister Kiril Vatev met with Michael Hager head of the cabinet of the Vice President of the European Commission, and Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commissioner for Trade, in connection with the market issues related to imports from Ukraine. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss in detail the problems related to transit capacity of goods from Ukraine and to minimize the damage to farmers from the created imbalances in the market.

Vatev introduced Hager to the specific problems created by increased imports as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. He explained the difficulties and concerns related to the excessive import of unrefined sunflower oil, powdered milk and honey, after the introduction of restrictive measures on four products - wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed. The Minister placed special emphasis on the unfavorable outlook if the restricted import of sunflower seeds is discontinued after September 15, when the EU ban on the four products expires. Minister Vatev presented calculations that clearly demonstrate that Bulgaria will have a serious problem after the sunflower harvest. The situation is compounded according to information about heavily affected sunflower seed processing facilities in Ukraine.

The most important issues to be addressed at the moment are storage capacity and processing capabilities, as well as infrastructure support that can accommodate the highly intensive overland truck traffic through the country. Vatev pointed out that the import of powdered milk from Ukraine is at undercut market prices. In practice, the import of the finished product is cheaper than the Bulgarian raw material, which causes serious damage to Bulgarian dairy farmers. The minister drew attention to the fact that the standards by which it is produced in Ukraine do not meet the standards in the EU and this creates unfair competition for Bulgarian agricultural producers.

Dombrovskis' chief of staff suggested that at the beginning of August, the EC organize an expert technical meeting of the five most affected countries, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania, with the participation of Ukraine, in order to discuss all available data on production, stock availability, the possibilities of transit infrastructure, processing capacities, as well as the latest developments in Ukraine.