June 6 (SeeNews) - The European Commission has extended by three months, to September 15, the suspension of imports of wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower from Ukraine into Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, the Bulgarian agriculturе ministry said on Tuesday.
According to the Commission's assessment, significant logistical bottlenecks and limited storage capacity remain, as the infrastructure of the five member states is still insufficient to cope with the rise in import traffic of Ukrainian grains, the agriculture ministry said in a press release.
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The derogation that has so far existed for contracts signed before the entry into force of the implementing regulation is no longer valid, the ministry added.
In a separate statement, the Commission said that scope of the exceptional and temporary preventive measures adopted on May 2 for the five CEE member states is further reduced from 17 to six tariff lines for the four products covered. The four grains will remain free to transit through the territories of the five countries on their way to markets in other EU member states or outside of the bloc.
Phasing out the special measures for the five countries by September 15 will further ease the operation of the so-called Solidarity Lanes facilitating Ukrainian exports to the EU and will address challenges to get Ukrainian grain out of the country for this harvest, the EU executive noted.
The Commission also extended by another year its provisions on import duties, quotas and trade defence measures - known as the Autonomous Trade Measures (ATMs) - concerning Ukrainian exports to the European Union as a whole. The ATMs were adopted on June 4, 2022 with the aim of aiding the Ukrainian economy in the face of Russia's military invasion.
Last month, the Commission said it is halting the imports of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed into the five CEE member states from May 2 until June 5, while the remaining EU member states will continue to import them. In return for the exceptional and temporary preventive measures on those imports, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia pledged to withdraw their unilateral bans imposed earlier on imports not only of wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed but also on all other agricultural products originating in Ukraine.