September 21 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria will ban the import of sunflower seed from Ukraine until the end of November, after which it will introduce licensing regulations taking into account the needs of local sunflower oil producers, the government in Sofia said.
Licensing rules will also be introduced for wheat, maize and rapeseed imports, in line with agreements between the EU and Ukraine, the government said in a press release on Wednesday.
You can download the 2023 Agriculture industry in Southeast Europe report here
Earlier this week, local producers held protests in Sofia after lawmakers voted not to extend a freeze on Ukrainian imports of wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed beyond September 15. The suspension of imports was put in place earlier this year in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia by the European Commission after local growers objected to the influx of cheaper Ukrainian grains. t
The memorandum also foresees the introduction of licences for other agri-foods such as milk powder and honey and bee products if imports exceed 10% of the total volume.
In addition, the government is actively working on obtaining permission from the EU Commission by the end of September for an additional state financing of 63 million levs ($34.3 million/32.2 million euro) in support of agricultural producers. This will come on top of the state aid of 150 million levs already approved by the Commission.
Another 47.5 million levs will be provided from the state budget, to be distributed equally among the smallest producers of livestock, bee products and crops.
Last week, the EU Commission announced that following the expiry of the temporary import ban, Ukraine agreed to control exports of four groups of goods to prevent market distortions in neighbouring EU member states and to introduce legal measures, including an export licensing system, within 30 days to avoid grain surges.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)