The problems faced by some of Ukraine’s exports to Central Europe will repeat themselves this autumn if the European Union does not express a clear position on its food import policy for the next five years, Ukrainian producers said on Thursday, quoted by Reuters.

The announcement comes after some EU member states in Central Europe imposed a temporary ban on certain Ukrainian agricultural products, saying that excess Ukrainian supplies had affected local markets.

Ukrainian farmers say that the ban on imports to Poland can be largely explained by political problems ahead of this year’s elections.

They also say that countries are concerned about the prospect of increasing the number of Ukrainian goods on European markets, as Kyiv seeks to become a member of the EU.

The problem of most European countries is agrarian Ukraine

“The main problem for most European countries is agrarian Ukraine, which will enter the EU with 30 million hectares of land,” said Alex Lissitsa, who heads the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club association.

“They (the EU) don’t know what to do with subsidies, and they don’t know what to do with the internal market,” he added.

Lissitsa said that Kyiv needs to negotiate with Brussels, not with individual states, and that a long-term solution lasting five years – when accession talks are expected to take place – is needed.

“If (today) there is a partial decision, we will be back to all this again in the autumn – the French farmers will wake up, the Italian farmers will wake up,” he warned.

After the start of the Russian invasion, some European countries became transit routes for Ukrainian grain.

Ukrainian grain can no longer be sold in several countries

The EU’s executive body, the European Commission, has offered €100 million in aid to farmers in Central Europe on top of a previous package of €56 million. He also said he would take extraordinary “preventive measures” on certain agricultural products, but Central European countries want the list expanded.

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

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

Hungary wants the ban on Ukrainian wheat imports to remain in place until the end of 2023, Budapest’s Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy said, adding that other neighboring countries would like the same.

Kyiv considers Warsaw’s decision to ban the sale of Ukrainian agricultural products in Poland “unjustified” and “illegal” and warns that Russia is already using this situation to increase pressure on the Ukrainian economy by blocking the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea Corridor.