Slovakia, following Poland and Hungary, suspended the import of Ukrainian grain

The Slovak government has decided to temporarily stop importing grain and a number of food products from Ukraine, Prime Minister Eduard Heger said on Facebook (owned by Meta, which was recognized as extremist and banned in Russia).

“Slovakia will temporarily suspend imports of grains and a number of other products from Ukraine,” he wrote, stating that a meeting of the working group on this issue would be held today.

The Slovak government later approved this initiative. Published on the government portal disposal also talks about the introduction of a special transit regime for Ukrainian agricultural products. In the document notes Dennik, it is not specified how long the ban will last, and the list of goods subject to the ban is not specified. This list will have to be submitted later by the Ministry of Agriculture, which came up with this initiative.

Earlier, April 15 Poland and Hungary restricted import of grain and other agricultural products from Ukraine until June 30. Since December 2022, local farmers have been complaining about an oversupply of Ukrainian products on the market.

On January 30, a report prepared by Poland 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 also published on behalf of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. The Bulgarian authorities also think over the introduction of a similar ban, the media found out.

On March 31, the prime ministers of these countries, with the exception of the Czech Republic, appealed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen with a request to intervene in the crisis caused by the influx of Ukrainian grain, including considering the possibility of returning customs duties. But the European Commission extended the duty-free import of Ukrainian grains to the EU until June 2024. Against this background, Polish Minister of Agriculture Henryk Kowalczyk resigned.