BUDAPEST, February 2. /TASS/. The leaders of several EU countries spoke against the import of Ukrainian agricultural products at the summit in Brussels, while Belgian farmers asked Ukraine's neighbors to block such supplies at the EU borders, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said speaking on the Kossuth radio program.

He noted that the issue of importing agricultural products from Ukraine had been raised at the EU meeting on February 1 and the leaders of several states called on the European Commission to ban imports of Ukrainian goods.

Belgian farmers who held protests in Brussels also called for an embargo on supplies from Ukraine. Orban said he had met and spoken with demonstrators near the hotel where he was staying during the summit. According to him, "they asked the Poles, Slovaks and Hungarians to block Ukrainian supplies at the borders" of the European Union.

"We should not allow Ukrainian agricultural products into the European market. This is unfair. Farmers have been saying for years that their situation is becoming more and more difficult," the prime minister said, recalling that he lived in a village as a child and knows firsthand about the problems of people involved in agriculture. "I was a country child," Orban said.

In late January, the European Commission, contrary to the position of Central European countries, proposed extending the abolition of customs duties on agricultural products from Ukraine for another year, until June 2025. Hungary said it would leave in force a unilateral ban on the import of such goods and once again called on Brussels to resolve this issue within the entire EU. Together with Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, Hungary asked the EC to restore customs duties and quotas on agricultural products from Ukraine and oblige Ukrainian agricultural producers to adhere to EU standards.

In the fall of 2023, Central European countries had to introduce a ban on the import of agricultural products from Ukraine, since the European Commission refused to extend the embargo on supplies to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia of four types of grains and oilseeds - wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower seeds. The Hungarian government unilaterally upheld the embargo and extended it to another 20 types of Ukrainian agricultural products, including cereals, meat, eggs, vegetable oil, vegetables and honey. Poland and Slovakia also announced the extension of the ban on grain supplies from Ukraine.