Ukraine and the EU will discuss the terms of mutual trade this week

Ukraine and the European Union will discuss the terms of mutual trade this week after the end of the autonomous trade measures on June 5 and may jointly present a trade model for the period before Ukraine joins the EU in June. This was announced by Deputy Minister of Economy and Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka.

“We have certain modalities, and they will suit both European farmers and ours — this is the so-called transition to full integration with the EU conditions… I think we will be able to present this model together with the European Commission in June,” he said.

“Not to get ahead of ourselves, because the agreement is still in its initial stages, but I think in June we will have normal news about how trade between Ukraine and the EU will take place in the years before Ukraine joins the EU, already within the framework of a free trade agreement, and not within the framework of unilateral EU preferences,” he added.

The trade representative once again noted that from June 6, when the ATC will end, “nothing will change” in terms of access to the EU market for Ukrainian exporters.

“We will switch to different rules of the game, and this will happen in the summer of 2025, it will go quite smoothly,” Kachka said.

According to him, due to the fact that Ukraine is the main supplier of corn to the EU, which imposes duties only on Russian and Belarusian corn, demand for it will remain.

“There are certain concerns about wheat, but the demand for Ukrainian wheat is global and quite large, and the question here is that here, rather, the EU needs to understand for itself whether it needs Ukraine as one of the main suppliers of wheat, especially to the Iberian Peninsula,” Kachka said.

He added that individual decisions will be made regarding goods that are more sensitive to changes in the trade regime.

“These are sugar, honey, eggs, poultry meat – here we need to talk about trade conditions after the fact, without looking ahead,” the trade representative said.

Tags: EU, restrictions, Ukraine