EU extends tariff waiver for Ukrainian grain, despite some protests

European Union ambassadors agreed Friday to allow Ukraine’s grains into the bloc free of tariffs for another year, while granting more than $100 million in aid for farmers in neighboring EU countries where crop prices have collapsed with the flood of cheaper imports.

Four of those countries — Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia — had recently enacted unilateral bans on Ukrainian food imports in an effort to contain the problem. But the bans frustrated officials in Brussels and Kyiv and illustrated how the EU tariff waiver, enacted last year to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, had created unintended consequences that threatened to disrupt the bloc’s united front on the war.

“We have a solution which is addressing the concerns both of farmers in neighboring member states and Ukraine,” Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU trade commissioner, said Friday in a video announcing the deal, which made some concessions for EU nations affected by the glut of grain. Dombrovskis said it would include a financial support package of 100 million euros ($110 million) for farmers in neighboring member states, from an EU emergency fund normally reserved to compensate them in case of natural disasters.

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“In return, the neighboring member states will be withdrawing their unilateral measures,” he said, referring to the Ukrainian import bans.

The European Parliament is set to give formal approval next month, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, hailed the agreement as “a deal that preserves both Ukraine’s exports capacity so it continues feeding the world, and our farmers’ livelihoods.”

The lifting of EU tariffs was originally conceived as an emergency measure in response to Russia’s invasion: a way to create cheap, secure land routes to let vital supplies of grains out of Ukraine and to alleviate a global food crisis, worsened by Russia’s naval blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea.

The United Nations and Turkey brokered a deal with Ukraine and Russia that allows the transport of grain from some of those ports, but that mechanism must be renewed every three months and Russia said this week that it was considering pulling out.

The EU’s decision to lift tariffs on Ukrainian grain spurred shipments to enter neighboring countries by road. But the policy backfired for Ukraine’s nearest EU neighbors: Ukrainian grain flooded those markets, causing prices to plummet.