Copa and Cogeca Alarmed by COREPER’s Position on Fertilizer Tariffs

According to an official statement, the COREPER Council has adopted its position in preparation for negotiations with the European Parliament regarding the Commission’s proposed regulation to gradually impose tariffs on fertilizer imports from Russia and Belarus.

Since the publication of the Commission’s proposal, Copa and Cogeca have consistently warned EU co-legislators about the significant risks it poses to European agriculture and food security.

The proposal—put forward without a proper impact assessment—offers neither short-term solutions nor a clear medium- and long-term strategy for sourcing alternatives. As a result, Copa and Cogeca are dismayed and concerned by the Council’s stance, which fails to make substantial progress beyond the Commission’s original proposal.

Fertilizers are essential for crop and pasture growth and represent a major cost factor for European farmers. This issue is of vital importance to food security and sovereignty.

The EU cannot afford to gamble with its agricultural resources. As the European Parliament prepares to vote on this matter, we hope our concerns will be heard.

Copa and Cogeca have adopted a balanced position that acknowledges the geopolitical challenges facing Europe and the need to reduce strategic dependencies. However, we also emphasize the importance of concrete measures to mitigate the immediate impact on the EU fertilizer market and to establish a medium-term diversification strategy.

In our position paper, Copa and Cogeca call on the Commission to immediately remove import duties on fertilizers from third countries outside Russia and Belarus. We also urge the prioritization of manure use by granting derogations from the Nitrates Directive for processed manure and grassland.

Furthermore, Copa and Cogeca request a one-year delay in the proposed tariff changes for fertilizers from Russia and Belarus to allow the market time to adapt. We also advocate limiting tariff changes to nitrogen-based fertilizers, avoiding overlaps with existing anti-dumping measures and CBAM duties, and increasing import quotas to pre-war levels.

Finally, we call for the implementation of price monitoring and the activation of reliable, automatic safeguard measures whenever fertilizer prices exceed benchmark levels.