The European Commission will ban the import of wheat and other Ukrainian products to Romania until June 5, Agriculture Minister Petre Daea said on Wednesday, as quoted by Reuters.

His comments came after Daea announced last week that the Romanian government had decided to seal and control shipments of grain from Ukraine transiting through Romania and to carry out customs checks on all agricultural products coming from the neighboring country.

Thus, Romania did not ban the import or transit of Ukrainian grain, measures taken by Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria to protect local farmers in the face of an influx of cheap agricultural products from Ukraine.

Following these decisions, the European Commission announced that it would take extraordinary “precautionary measures” in the case of imports of wheat, corn, sunflower seeds and rapeseed, compensating local farmers and allowing Ukrainian wheat to be imported into 4 countries and Romania only if they are destined for other EU member states or countries of the rest of the world.

Daea said on Wednesday that the Commission’s measures depend on the lifting of the bans imposed unilaterally by the four countries, and that if no common agreement is reached, the executive led by Ursula von der Leyen will ban Ukrainian exports to Romania. .

“Today and tomorrow, the Commission is working with experts from the countries, and when it is concluded that the states will refuse, within 48 hours from the moment of refusal, a European norm will be established to ban imports. five products. If they do not want to (abandon n.ed), Romania, after the completion of these interpretations, will be immediately protected by the decision of the European Commission,” explained Petre Daea, quoted by Economica.net.

Which Ukrainian agricultural products will be banned from being imported to Romania

According to him, the ban will apply to the import of wheat, corn, sunflower, rapeseed and sunflower oil from Ukraine.

“We expect that the decision on this stoppage of imports will be made by the decision of the European Commission responsible for this area and that Romania will immediately receive the amount due to it through the distribution of money from the 100 million euros (. ..) I will discuss with the affected countries, in dialogue with the Commission to be able to have a longer path of common rules to protect the market from imports from Ukraine,” the minister also said.

His comments came after EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski said on Tuesday that he was confident that Ukraine’s neighboring countries would soon agree to an agreement that would allow transit of Ukrainian wheat destined for third countries through their territory.

Millions of tonnes of Ukrainian agricultural products, cheaper than the EU market price and exempt from customs duties, have arrived in Central and Eastern European countries this year after blockades of Black Sea ports prevented Ukraine from exporting to Africa.

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