Brussels will not provide any assistance that would protect Hungarian, Romanian, Polish or Bulgarian producers from the flow of grain imports from Ukraine, as Zsolt Feldman, State Secretary for Agriculture, told MTI in Brussels on Monday.
The state secretary said that at a meeting of EU agriculture ministers on Monday, six Eastern European member states asked the European Commission to take measures to protect Eastern European producers from the increasing flow of Ukrainian grain imports into Europe.
He stressed that Hungary has supported the "liberation" of grain stuck in Ukraine, but that Ukrainian grain is not transported to North Africa or the Middle East, but to a significant extent to Europe and countries neighbouring or bordering Ukraine, in amounts of millions of tonnes.
"This grain is produced with low production costs, using production practices not used in the European Union, and is on average €70 cheaper per tonne than grain produced in Hungary or Eastern Europe," he pointed out. This means that Hungarian producers cannot sell the cereals they produce either on their domestic market or on their traditional export markets. He said that the European Commission had envisaged the creation of a financial fund, which Hungary considers important, but that it could not solve the market crisis.
Mr. Feldman also said that at the Council meeting, together with several member states, they urged the European Commission to put a clear indication of origin on the packaging of honey products. He drew attention to the fact that honey products from third countries have flooded the market in Europe at extremely low prices, which are essentially squeezing good quality Hungarian honey out of these export markets.
The State Secretary also pointed out that the European Commission is proposing to introduce an environmental regulation and authorisation system for medium-sized livestock farms, which only works for large farms. He pointed out that 16 Member States, including Hungary, had sent a joint letter to the European Commission and the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU, calling for the involvement of Member States' agriculture ministers in environmental issues affecting European agriculture.
Source: MTI - Hungarian News Agency
