Hungary announced the continuation of the ban on grain imports from Ukraine

Hungary will maintain a ban on the import of grain and other agricultural products from Ukraine. This was announced by the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic Istvan Nagy following a meeting with colleagues from EU countries in Luxembourg.

“Although no decision was made at the meeting of the EU Council on Agriculture to prevent a crisis in the domestic market caused by the supply of Ukrainian grain to the EU countries, the result of the upcoming agreement will be that Hungary will continue to maintain a ban on grain imports from Ukraine,” he said (cit. according to TASS).

Nagy also stressed that Budapest will continue negotiations with the European Commission in order to prepare a common agreement on the import ban at the EU level. According to him, everyone in the EU is sympathetic to the measures to ban grain imports, which were introduced unilaterally by a number of countries.

On April 25, Nagy proposed extending the ban on imports of Ukrainian agricultural products until the end of the year to allow farmers to harvest and store crops, writes Reuters.

On January 30, a report was published on the website of the Council of Europe, which noted that due to the simplified export, the supply of Ukrainian products to neighboring countries increased in some cases by thousands of times, which led to overcrowding of warehouses and difficulties for local producers. The document was prepared by Poland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. At the end of March, the EC sent support to farmers in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria in the amount of 56 million euros from the reserve fund of the EU agricultural subsidies program.

However, this measure was not enough. In mid-April Hungary, Poland and Slovakia restricted import of Ukrainian grain. Similar plans were announced by the Romanian authorities. April 19 Bulgaria is also temporarily banned import of Ukrainian food.

The European Commission called the decision of the countries unacceptable. April 18 Ukraine and Poland Deal about unblocking the transit of Ukrainian grain on the night of April 21-22. Later in EC suggested financial support in the amount of 100 million euros for farmers in Eastern Europe affected by the import of Ukrainian grain.