What is the EU planning to do in relation to Ukraine?
The European Union is preparing to reintroduce tariffs on Ukrainian agricultural products — ending the special duty-free access granted after the start of the war in 2022.
According to Financial Times, the temporary trade deal allowed most Ukrainian goods to enter the EU without tariffs. That agreement will expire on June 6, 2025, and will not be renewed. The decision follows pressure from Poland, where farmers protested that cheap Ukrainian imports were hurting local agriculture.
The rollback will hit corn, sugar, poultry, and honey the hardest. For example, the duty-free corn quota will drop from 4.7 million tons to just 650,000, while sugar and poultry allowances will also be sharply reduced.
The EU says this isn’t a political shift — just a pause to renegotiate the broader free trade agreement between Ukraine and the bloc. But for Ukrainian exporters, it’s a blow — and a warning that even wartime alliances have economic limits.
