SOFIA, April 19. /TASS/. The technical government of Bulgaria has decided to ban import of a number of products from Ukraine from April 24 to June 30. Bulgarian Agriculture Minister Yavor Gechev announced this at a briefing following the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.
"Today, a decision has been made to temporarily restrict the import of a number of Ukrainian products to Bulgaria. Bulgaria followed the example of three other states, fearing that our grain market is oversaturated. We have accumulated grain worth several billion, if we don’t take action, we won’t be able to sell it," Gechev explained adding that the ban will not affect the so-called corridors of solidarity, through which grain is sent to third countries in transit through Bulgaria.
"Our support for Ukraine continues, we communicate daily with the European Commission. There is an understanding that this issue is very important for us. 16% of the country's citizens are engaged in agriculture, and we cannot allow their work to be questioned," Economy Ministry Nikola Stoyanov added.
He stressed that the European Commission must ensure that "corridors of solidarity are corridors of transit."
Earlier, Prime Minister Galab Donev announced that the government would decide on a temporary ban on the import of a number of products from Ukraine due to the fact that significant amounts of food from this country remained in Bulgaria, disrupting the main production and trade chains, causing serious damage to the Bulgarian business.
"Bulgaria remains in solidarity with Ukraine, but the bankruptcy of Bulgarian agricultural producers will not help it in any way," Donev added.
On April 14, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic called for the creation of a single European mechanism for the purchase of Ukrainian grain and the introduction of customs quotas in the EU for agricultural products from Ukraine.
On April 16, Hungary and Poland announced a ban on the import of agricultural products from Ukraine, which will be in effect until June 30. Both countries noted that they were forced to resort to this measure due to the lack of response from the European Commission to their demands to provide EU assistance to Hungarian and Polish farmers. They suffer significant losses due to the overstocking of the markets of their countries with Ukrainian agricultural products. On April 17, the Slovak government introduced a similar restriction.