Azarov: Ukraine suggests revising transitional provisions of FTA with EU in its favor

“Let’s negotiate. We will not change the agreement and the conditions
of its implementation, I mean the transitional provisions, let’s
formulate them in such a way so that they should be favorable for us,”
the government’s press service quoted the prime minister as saying at a
meeting with representatives of the agribusiness.

Azarov said that Kyiv considered the introduction of export quotas
for sugar and the abolition of duties on sunflower seeds to be
discriminatory. “As long as we do not upgrade all of our oil extraction
plants, we will not cancel the duty on sunflower seeds,” the premier
said.

The prime minister explained the initialing of the agreement on
association and free trade area with the EU a year and a half ago by the
fact that Ukraine’s economy was then on the rise and there were no
artificially created trade problems with Russia.

“Let’s negotiate. Firstly, we need a loan of around 20 billion
[euros], and on normal terms. I would not hear about depriving the
agricultural sector of the little state support that we provide, because
the subsidies in European countries, in particular in our closest
neighbor Poland, are much higher than in Ukraine,” Azarov said.

The government’s press service said that agribusiness representatives
present at the meeting expressed support for the decision of the
president and the government to suspend the preparation for the signing
of the association agreement. According to them, the transition periods
should be extended for the adaptation to European conditions. In
particular, farmers expressed their concern about the ban on the sale of
milk produced in private households (the law on the introduction of
such a ban in 2015 was adopted by parliament back in 2009), as well as
the requirement for more space per bird in poultry farms, which will
enter into force in four years. They said a total of 4.5 million private
households in Ukraine needed state support for the rapid adaptation to
the EU requirements.