The EU Commission is proposing that farmers in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania share €56m of payments to help them cope with increased imports of cereals and oilseeds coming from neighbouring Ukraine.

The East of Europe recently witnessed a spike in cereal and oilseed imports from Ukraine and Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski told the EU-27 agriculture ministers they plan to activate the agricultural reserve in a bid to ease the burden on farmers. The bulk of the EU aid – €30m – is earmarked for Poland, while Bulgaria and Romania will get €17m and €10m, respectively.

According to EURACTIV, a media company in Brussels, the calculation was done based on objective criteria, such as pressure on local prices from the excessive supply of cereals and oilseeds, as well as tensions in the logistics chains from increased transit of products from Ukraine.

Mr Wojciechowski said: “This is support for the farmers affected by the increase of imports from Ukraine, not for the consequences of the war.”

The total amount of the aid could be even doubled to €112m, as the Commission said it will allow the three member states to co-finance the support measures using expenditures from their national budgets.

The issue was raised at the EU agriculture ministerial meeting in January by a group of six member states – Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria – complaining about the impact of the EU’s so-called ‘solidarity lanes’ on EU countries neighbouring Ukraine.

The EU launched the solidarity lanes initiative at the end of May, 2022, to help Ukraine export agricultural goods via all possible routes – including rail, road, and river transport – in the face of disruptions caused by Russia’s war.

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A year after the start of the war, the measures have proven successful in boosting Ukraine’s exports but European farmers have repeatedly warned that large amounts of grain get stuck in border regions, where they crowd local producers out of the market.

This is only the second time the Commission has triggered the agricultural reserve, included in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) scheme for the current programme period. With a financial envelope of €450m per year, the fund can be used to finance exceptional measures to counteract market disruptions affecting production or distribution.