Ukraine: Council and Parliament reach a deal to renew EU’s autonomous trade measures

The Council presidency and the European Parliament’s negotiators have provisionally agreed to renew the suspension of import duties and quotas on Ukrainian exports to the EU for another year, until 5 June 2025.

This renewal reaffirms the EU’s unwavering political and economic support for Ukraine, after two years of Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified military aggression. At the same time, the EU has decided to reinforce the protection of sensitive agricultural products by beefing up safeguards already included in the current regulation on temporary trade-liberalisation measures, in order to take into account any adverse impact on the market of one or several member states, rather than just on the EU market as a whole, as is the case now. A new automatic safeguard will also be added for certain sensitive products, such as poultry, eggs, sugar, oats, maize, groats and honey.

The autonomous trade measures (ATMs) will allow Ukraine to continue generating its own income from trade flows with the EU, which is important to support its economy under very challenging circumstances. Coupled with the EU’s extensive military, financial and humanitarian support, this will help Ukraine with its long-term recovery as well as its gradual integration into the EU internal market.

Main elements of the regulation

The renewed regulation will apply from 6 June 2024 until 5 June 2025 and concerns the continued suspension of all outstanding customs duties and quotas under Title IV of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine establishing a deep and comprehensive free trade area (DCFTA).

The regulation will also include two safeguard mechanisms to protect the EU market:

• a strengthened version of the existing mechanism, which will apply on the basis of regular monitoring, allowing the Commission to impose any safeguard measure if specific conditions are fulfilled
• a new, automatic safeguard mechanism which will oblige the Commission to reintroduce tariff-rate quotas if imports of poultry, eggs, sugar, oats, maize, groats and honey exceed the arithmetic mean of quantities imported in 2022 and 2023.

Key elements of the provisional agreement:

• extending the scope of the automatic safeguard mechanism to four additional products (oats, maize, groats and honey)
• shortening of the time period for activation of the automatic safeguard (from 21 to 14 days)
• the Commission’s commitment to enhanced monitoring of imports of wheat and other cereals and use of the tools at its disposal in the event of market disruptions

Next steps

The European Parliament and the Council will now need to approve the provisional agreement.

The European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade and the EU’s ambassadors (Coreper) will be invited to confirm the outcome of the interinstitutional negotiations later today.

The Parliament’s position at first reading is then expected to be adopted at one of the April plenary sessions.

The regulation is then to be adopted by the Council, signed by the representatives of the Council and the European Parliament and published in the Official Journal, before entering into force on 6 June 2024.

Background

On 31 January 2024, the European Commission (Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis) proposed extending the suspension of import duties and quotas on all imports from Ukraine to the EU for another year.

On 21 February 2024, the Permanent Representatives Committee approved the text of the Commission proposal without any modifications, with a view to reaching an agreement at first reading with the European Parliament.

The European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade voted on the proposal at its meeting on 7 March 2024 and agreed to approve the Commission proposal without any amendments. On 13 March, the EP Plenary adopted amendments. Since the Parliament’s position differed from that of the Council and the Council did not support the amendments, a round of interinstitutional negotiations was needed to reach an agreement at first reading with the European Parliament.