BRUSSELS, September 18. /TASS/. Kiev will sue Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in the WTO over their refusal to lift the embargo on Ukrainian grain, Ukraine’s trade representative Taras Kachka told the European edition of the newspaper Politico.
"It is important to prove that these actions are legally wrong. <...> For many years, it’s been the European Commission who is the trade negotiator and trade policy institution for the whole EU. And we used to work on this basis. The systemic approach of Budapest and Warsaw of ignoring the position of the EU institutions in trade policy, I think that will be a problem for the EU in general, because there is no unity there," Kachka said.
According to him, Kiev will be forced to respond to Warsaw’s actions and introduce a ban on the import of vegetables and fruits from Poland. He also described the actions of Hungary, which expanded the trade embargo to 25 items of Ukrainian agricultural products, including meat, as a "political statement" about blocking trade with the post-Soviet republic and "ignoring Brussels."
In April, five Central European countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) banned the import of grain and other agricultural products from Ukraine. They later canceled these measures in exchange for the European Commission's decision to establish, first until June 5 and then until September 15, an embargo on supplies from Ukraine of four types of grains and oilseeds - wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower seeds. The five countries are now seeking an extension of the embargo until at least the end of the year.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky stated that Kiev is strongly against any further restrictions on grain exports. According to him, the European Commission is violating promises, the provisions of the association agreement, and the conditions of the free market, so Kiev is ready to defend its rights in court. In the context of the EC’s refusal to extend this embargo after September 15, Budapest, Bratislava and Warsaw extended the ban on the import of Ukrainian agricultural products at the national level.