The European Commission has proposed an increase in tariffs on imports of cereals and oilseeds from Russia and Belarus to prevent destabilization of the EU market, financing Russian aggression against Ukraine, and attempting to defuse protests at the Ukrainian-Polish border.

Kiev supports the initiative

The measure has been requested for months by the Baltic states and more recently supported by the Czech Republic and Poland, where blockades at the borders with Ukraine have been ongoing for months.

Kiev supports the initiative. "Russia's access to the European agricultural market is still unrestricted," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to EU leaders gathered in Brussels on March 21-22.

"When Ukrainian cereals are dumped on roads or railways," as happened in Poland, "Russian products are still being transported to Europe," and "it is not fair," he added.

The measure will not affect goods in transit, maintaining "our commitment to maintaining global food security, especially for developing countries," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a press release.

The proposal is to be adopted by the EU Council by a qualified majority

Depending on the specific product, the Commission aims to increase tariffs either to EUR 95 per ton or to 50% of the value of cereals, oilseeds, and derivative products. Most of these (e.g., corn, durum wheat, and oilseeds) currently benefit from zero or near-zero duties.

The tariffs "are designed to be sufficiently high to discourage current imports" from Russia and Belarus, Commission officials told Euractiv.

Between July 2023 and January 2024, imports of Russian cereals into the EU increased, each monthly import larger than the five-year average for the comparable month.

Predictably low impact on the market and prices

The tariff proposal will not have a "major impact" on the EU market, Commission officials told Euractiv. This means the initiative will do little to address one of the main causes of protests against Ukrainian imports – the level of cereal prices, the lowest since 2020.

Exiting the current food import crisis is through the EU and its guarantees, not through the "populist" blame game against Ukraine or Brussels, former Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Director-General of the European Commission, Jerzy Plewa, from Poland, told Euractiv in an interview.

A call from the European Parliament to activate public procurement of cereals to withdraw them from the market was not included, as "the costs would likely be prohibitive" if large quantities were purchased, Commission officials said.

They also emphasized that it would not have a significant impact on markets or farmer incomes if quantities were small.

To put things into perspective, in 2023 the EU imported only 1.5 million tonnes of cereals from Russia, a very small part of the revised total of 272 million tonnes of cereals produced by the EU in the same year – according to the European Commission's data portal.