You're reading: Mingarelli advises Ukraine to focus on transition to EU standards in trade

The speedy implementation of the norms and standards of the European Union (EU) in accordance with the provisions on the establishment of a free trade zone (FTA) is a more promising way of increasing exports to the EU countries for Ukraine than the only struggle to expand tariff quotas, Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Hugues Mingarelli said.

“Let’s not focus solely on quotas that relate only to a narrow group of agricultural products, and instead accelerate the work on opening up much larger EU markets by adopting EU standards,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

Mingarelli reminded that within the FTA for Ukraine, quotas are defined for duty-free supply to the EU for 36 types of products, of which the Ukrainian side chooses only nine in full.

“You should take over the norms and standards of the EU as foreseen and provided for in the FTA and you will be able to export what you can export to the single EU market […] Once the FTA provisions enter into force, these quotas will disappear,” he said.

The agreement between the European Union and Ukraine on an enhanced and comprehensive free trade zone (FTA) is part of the agreement on the association of the EU and Ukraine entered into force on Jan. 1, 2016. According to it, Ukraine can supply 36 goods to the EU without tariffs within the limits of the approved volumes of tariff quotas. In particular, the quotas for beef supplies amount to 12,000 tonnes, pork – 40,000 tonnes, milk, yoghurts, fermented milk products – 8,000 tonnes, milk powder – 1,500 tonnes, butter – 1,500 tonnes, egg products – 1,500 tonnes, eggs – 3,000 tonnes. For wheat, quotas were determined at a rate of 950,000 tonnes, barley – 250,000 tonnes, maize – 400,000 tonnes, sugar – 20,000 tonnes, honey – 5,000 tonnes, processed tomatoes – 10,000 tonnes, grape and apple juice – 10,000 tonnes, oats – 4,000 tonnes, garlic – 500 tonnes.

In September 2016, the European Commission agreed with the proposal to increase quotas for a number of commodity items from Ukraine. It was about the possibility of increasing the quota for corn by 650,000 tonnes, wheat – 100,000 tonnes, barley – 350,000 tonnes, cereals and processed grain – by 7,800 tonnes, oats – 4,000 tonnes, honey – by 3,000 tonnes, grape juice – by 500 tonnes, tomatoes – by 5,000 tonnes.

The Committee of the European Parliament on International Trade on May 4 voted in general for increasing quotas for Ukrainian agricultural products, except for wheat, tomatoes and urea.