UCAB, together with the leading agrarian associations that are members of the Public Union "Ukrainian National Agrarian Forum" – Public Union "Agrarian Union of Ukraine", Public Union “Ukrainian Agrarian Council”, Association “Poultry Union of Ukraine” appealed to Executive Vice President, Commissioner for Trade European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis with a request to support the initiative of introducing subsidies from the European Commission for transportation of Ukrainian agricultural products to the ports of Baltic countries, Germany, Netherlands, Croatia, Italy and Slovenia.

As stated in an open appeal, with regard to the suspension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative due to the actions of the Russian Federation and the impossibility of exporting agricultural products from Ukrainian seaports, there is urgent need to increase export capacities through the EU Solidarity Lanes by an additional 1-1.5 million tons of grain every month. 

One of the important directions for increasing the export capacity is to increase the volume of transportation to EU ports, which are included in the directions within the Solidarity Paths, but are currently underutilized. These are the ports of Baltic countries (Klaipeda, Liepaja, Ventspils, Riga), Germany (Rostok, Hamburg), Netherlands (Rotterdam), Croatia (Rijeka), Italy (Trieste), Slovenia (Koper). 

“The main obstacle to the full use of the indicated directions and ports is the relatively high cost of transportation compared to other nearby ports, in particular Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, which currently amounts to a difference of 30-40 euros/t. This situation creates an uneven load on the existing port infrastructure of the EU countries”,  – noted in the appeal. 

With the abovementioned, the agricultural community calls on the EU to consider the possibility of reducing the cost of transporting Ukrainian agricultural products to the ports of Baltic countries, Germany, Netherlands, Croatia, Italy and Slovenia by introducing subsidies from the European Commission for such transportation to compensate for additional logistics costs. 

Also, to consider the possibility of simplifying and speeding up the relevant control procedures for the transit of agricultural products, in particular by transferring sanitary, phytosanitary and veterinary controls from border crossing points with Ukraine to the territory of the country of destination of the cargo, which will ensure a significant increase in export volumes.