Brussels proposes “prohibitive” tariffs on Russian grain to prevent Moscow from using it as a weapon of war

The European Commission has proposed this Friday to impose “prohibitive” tariffs of up to 50% on the import into the EU of cereals, oilseeds and derived products from Russia and Belarus.

Brussels thus wants to prevent Moscow from using these revenues to finance its war in Ukraine.

At the same time, it seeks to prevent attempts to use them as another weapon of war in its attempts to destabilize the European internal market, especially at times of strong rural protests in multiple countries of the Union.

The new tariffs will allow us to “mitigate the growing risk of Russian imports to our markets and our farmers,” said the President of the European Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, when announcing the proposal, which she already announced on Thursday night to the heads of State and Government meeting until Friday in Brussels, and they are the ones who will have to give their approval to the measure.

These, for their part, have tasked the Commission with proposing more “innovative” solutions to respond to the anger of the countryside.

The tariffs are above all a “preventive” measure, community sources emphasize, given the confirmation that, especially in the last year, Russia has strongly increased its cereal production, something that Brussels directly relates to the theft of Ukrainian grain. through the confiscation of agricultural production in the occupied territories.

According to Brussels, these Ukrainian cereals have been falsely labeled as “Russian” and “deliberately” exported to the EU, something that will now be stopped because, the Commission trusts, “the proposed tariffs will ensure that this illicit export method is no longer profitable".

The inclusion of Belarus in this tariff measure – which is not a sanction, the sources emphasize, although it is practically equivalent – ​​is due to the fact that this country, an ally of Moscow, has already been used in the past by the Kremlin and could do so again to “ circumvent” European punitive measures.

The new tariffs, which depending on the product affected will mean an increase of 95 euros per ton or an

ad valorem

duty of 50% for those of higher value, are so “prohibitive” that they will make the import of these products commercially “unviable”, which “It will prevent possible increases that could destabilize the European food market,” said the vice president of the Commission and head of Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis.

“They will reduce Russia's ability to exploit the EU to benefit its war machine, while we maintain our commitment to preserving global food security,” Von der Leyen added.

Community sources emphasize that the measure, which will affect products such as wheat, corn or sunflower flour, is very limited to the internal market, since it excludes from the new tariffs Russian or Belarusian products that are destined for third countries.

A decision, the sources emphasize, that seeks to prevent a new wave of Russian propaganda accusing the EU of endangering the food security of third countries, especially the most vulnerable, as it already did during the early days of the war.

The proposal also includes Russia and Belarus losing access to EU grain quotas under the World Trade Organization (WTO), which offer better tariff treatment for some products.

Appease European farmers

The new measure against Russia will not have a brutal impact on its economy—Russian exports to the EU of cereals, oilseeds and derived products brought Moscow a total of 1.3 billion euros in 2023—nor on the European one ( Russian imports are barely 1% of the total).

Hence, it is considered both a political warning to Moscow and another attempt to appease European farmers who have been protesting for months in various countries.

The measure also seeks to calm a Ukraine that has seen with concern how these rural protests also led to a demand from European farmers to end the tariff exemptions on several Ukrainian agricultural products approved since 2022 as a support measure for the country. at war.

In his videoconference address to the 27 European leaders at the beginning of their summit in Brussels on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had lamented the lack of restrictions on the European agricultural market for Russia while peasant protests in neighboring countries such as Poland have sparked that tons of Ukrainian grain are dumped at the border under accusations from farmers that they cause losses and disruptions in the European market.

“That is unfair,” Zelensky stressed.

Last year, protests by Polish farmers and other neighboring European countries against Ukrainian grains opened the first crack in European unity in the face of the war provoked by Moscow.

Just this week, co-legislators – MEPs and Member States – reached a provisional agreement to extend for another year the so-called autonomous EU trade measures, which involve the suspension of import duties and quotas on Ukrainian exports to the EU.

However, in light of agricultural protests, it was agreed to add new safeguards for certain “sensitive products” such as poultry, eggs, sugar, oats, corn, groats and honey.

Several of the countries most affected by these agricultural protests, including Lithuania and Poland, had long been explicitly calling for the tariff measure now announced to stop imports of Russian grain.

An example of the deep concern that the agrarian protests provoke in European governments - especially due to the capitalization of rural discontent that an extreme right is trying to create, which is expected to grow in the European elections in June - is the clear mandate that the Twenty-Seven have given this Friday, once again, to the Commission to continue working “without delay” on more “innovative” measures to alleviate the “bureaucratic burden” of the sector.

The Twenty-seven also want the position of farmers in the supply chain to be “strengthened”, to guarantee a “fair income”.

And they urge the Commission to extend to the agricultural sector the rule approved in March 2023, in response to the multimillion-dollar subsidies from the United States and China, which relaxes the requirements for granting state aid so that European companies do not lose competitiveness during their process. adaptation to the climate and digital transition.

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