The ambassadors of the European Union supported the liberalization of trade with Ukraine

Ukraine

Regulation & Compliances

Published Mar 29, 2024

Tridge summary

European Union ambassadors have agreed to extend duty-free trade for agricultural products with Ukraine, a decision made during Belgium's EU Council presidency aimed at supporting Ukraine while considering the interests of EU agricultural markets. This extension awaits approval from the European Parliament. In a separate decision, the EU has decided not to use 5 billion euros from the profits of invested Russian assets, frozen in 2022-2023, to support Ukraine, allowing the entity holding these assets to keep the investment profits. Amidst trade discussions, a compromise was reached to ensure a balanced approach towards Ukraine, including an extension for a defense mechanism and a slight strengthening of the European Commission's declaration. However, trade tensions are evident, with a significant truck queue forming due to Polish farmers' protests and Hungary advocating for EU-level restrictions on Ukrainian grain trade.

Disclaimer: The above summary was generated by a state-of-the-art LLM model and is intended for informational purposes only. It is recommended that readers refer to the original article for more context.

Original content

The ambassadors of the European Union supported the continuation of duty-free trade in agricultural products between Ukraine and the EU. This was announced during Belgium's presidency of the EU Council. Now the relevant initiative should be presented to the European Parliament "in order to quickly reach an agreement." It should be noted that earlier the European Union decided not to transfer 5 billion euros to Ukraine. We are talking about the profit received from the investment of Russian assets, frozen in the period of 2022-2023. The body, which owns the vast majority of the Russian central bank's assets in Europe, has been given permission to keep profits from their investments in 2022 and 2023 rather than use the cash to support Ukraine. EU ambassadors agreed on a new compromise on expanding trade measures for Ukraine, ensuring a balanced approach between supporting Ukraine and protecting EU agricultural markets. This compromise remains unchanged compared to the text adopted a ...

Source: Agropolit