Ukraine and the European Union will discuss the terms of mutual trade next week, especially in the agricultural sector, after the completion of the Autonomous Trade Measures (ATM) on June 5 this year, and in June they may jointly present a trade model for the period before Ukraine joins the EU, Deputy Economy Minister and Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka said.
"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 at the Forbes Money forum in Kyiv.
"Without looking ahead, because the agreement is still in its initial stages, I think in June we will have normal news about how trade between Ukraine and the EU will take place for 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 ATM will end, in terms of access to the EU market for Ukrainian exporters, "nothing will change."
"We will switch to different rules of the game, and this will happen in the summer of 2025, it will go quite smoothly," Kachka described the transition.
According to him, the ATMs concerned Ukrainian exports worth EUR3.5 billion, and the lion's share concerned corn.
According to the trade representative, 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 global demand for Ukrainian wheat is quite large, and the question here is that the EU needs to understand for itself whether it needs Ukraine as one of the main suppliers of wheat, especially to the Iberian Peninsula," said Kachka.
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 post facto, without looking ahead," the trade representative said.
The first ATMs entered into force on June 4, 2022 for a period of one year, temporarily abolishing duties, quotas and trade restrictions for Ukrainian goods. Then they were extended twice: on June 6, 2023 and June 6, 2024, the last time - with the introduction of quotas for duty-free exports of certain goods. For 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers has set the quota for sugar exports to the EU at 107,200 tons, and poultry meat at 57,100 tons.
Ukrainian farmers are concerned about the return of trade with the EU to the current norms of Article 29 of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) free trade agreement after June 5, 2025, which set very low quotas for the export of certain types of agricultural products. This will also return the quota for the export of 100,000 tons of bioethanol.
The EU has already announced that quotas will be returned from June 6 and for the period until the end of 2025 they will amount to 7/12 of the annual quota under the DCFTA.
At the same time, with regard to MMC products, the European Union was considering a proposal to maintain the preferential import regime from Ukraine in the event of the cancellation of the ATM, and on May 8 of this year the European Parliament supported such a decision, which actually allows the current steel trade regime to continue after June 5.
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