On Tuesday, the Hungarian government announced that it would not reimpose a ban on Ukrainian honey imports, a rare concession for Kyiv, which it says is motivated by the needs of its own market, Reuters reported.

In April last year, the Cabinet of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban banned the import of 24 agricultural products from Ukraine, including grain and meat, as well as honey. However, on February 19 this year, the Hungarian government removed honey from the list, prompting protests by approximately 22,000 beekeepers in Hungary.

Hungary’s Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy told Reuters on Tuesday that the import ban had not had a positive impact on the local market, as prices paid by distributors to producers had not increased as much as the latter had hoped.

At the same time, he explained that this measure had a negative impact on Hungarian companies that export honey, as they need Ukrainian honey to fulfill contracts.

“Since the ban could no longer support the interests of Hungarian beekeepers, it had no tangible effect, we did not want to create more problems,” Nagy said about the reasons “for which we reopened our market” for Ukrainian honey.

Asked by Reuters journalists whether the government in Budapest might consider reimposing the ban on the import of Ukrainian honey, he answered “no” because “the measure has no effect.”

A quarter of the honey imported into the EU comes from Ukraine

Most of the honey in the EU is imported from China and Ukraine. According to the data of the European Commission, in January-August 2023, about 25% of honey imported to the EU bloc came from Ukraine.

Krystian Kisiuhas, a beekeeper from the Hungarian village of Ladanibene, told Reuters that he has 110 hives and that the prices he currently receives for selling honey do not even cover his production costs.

“We want to prevent Ukrainian honey from entering the European market or at least the Hungarian market at cheap prices in order to protect our market, as prices have remained low for 2 years,” says Kisiuhas, who last month participated in a protest organized by the Hungarian beekeepers near the border with Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, in the future, beekeepers who made a living from this will be forced to go to other jobs and continue to produce honey as a hobby, because we will not be able to sell our honey in large quantities,” he added to Reuters. .

The appearance of cheap honey from Ukraine on the market of our country is also blamed on Romanian beekeepers, who in April of last year asked to ban imports based on the Hungarian model.

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