Temporary tariff cuts for Ukrainian poultry exports to EU

The European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council has adopted a proposal for temporarily removing customs duties on Ukrainian exports to the EU, including pork, poultry and grains.

The annual value of this support measure will be nearly €500 million in tariff reductions, of which almost €400 million accrue to the agricultural sector. The elimination of customs duties are granted until November 1, 2014.

The European Commission proposed this step, following the recent unprecedented events in the country and the security, political and economic challenges faced by Ukraine. Early March, the European Commission stated its support to help stabilise Ukraine’s economy with a package of measures. One of these was the granting of autonomous trade preferences.

An European Commission press release states that ‘this unilateral measure will allow Ukrainian exporters to benefit from preferential access to the EU market’.

Agricultural goods

The press release continues to say, “For agricultural goods, the EU has taken important but more limited action to open up its market to Ukrainian agriculture. This will ensure the European agricultural sector is not harmed by this unilateral trade action.

“In concrete terms, the EU will grant immediate and unlimited preferences to 82.2% of Ukraine’s exports. For the other products (cereals, pork, beef, poultry and a handful of additional products) a partial liberalisation is achieved by the granting of duty-free tariff rate quotas (TRQs), which limit the amount of certain goods able to benefit from the trade preference.”

The measure also includes industrial products, processed food products, safeguard systems.