Belarus is ready to resume free trade with Ukraine if the latter reviews its measures on Belarusian goods, Belarusian First Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Guryanov said.
“We’re ready to fully scrap all our decisions. We’re ready to resume free trade in full. But not before Ukraine has reviewed the measures taken in regard to Belarusian products, whose de facto aim was simply to limit competition from Belarusian manufacturers,” Guryanov said, commenting on a Belarusian government decision to license the import of certain types of goods in order to restrict trade with Ukraine.
His commentary was published on the ministry’s website on Friday.
Earlier on Friday, Ukrainian Deputy Economic Minister and Trade Representative Taras Kachka said that Belarus was about to introduce an individual licensing regime on the import of a number of Ukrainian goods.
“There is information that Belarus has introduced individual licensing of the import of some Ukrainian goods: confectionary products, chocolate, juices, beer, chip and fiber boards, wallpaper, toilet paper and packaging, bricks, ceramic tiles, glass ampoules, agricultural equipment for sowing, washing machines, and furniture. The decision was approved by Decree 292 issued by of the Council of Ministers of Belarus on May 26,” Kachka said on Facebook. The decision will take effect ten months after publication and will remain in effect for six months, he said.
“Such actions are unfounded and discriminatory. Individual licensing means manual management of the import of Ukrainian products into Belarus. The government is holding consultations with manufacturers on dealing with the negative consequences of the discriminatory actions taken by the Belarusian government,” Kachka said.
For his part, Guryanov explained that the Council of Ministers decision of May 26, 2021, to license the import of certain types of goods was due to Ukraine having “recently systematically violated the free trade regime spelt out in the CIS free trade zone law.
“We have all agreed a long time ago that a free trade zone involves free movement of goods. The agreement does not involve imposing any tariff restrictions on members’ products in any form or stipulation. Last December Ukraine stunned Belarus by deciding to impose a de facto duty on certain types of Belarusian metal products under a pretext of supposedly unfriendly and discriminatory steps by the Republic of Belarus,” he recalled.
In May Ukraine’s inter-agency commission for international trade imposed further duties on Belarusian wheel products, and that despite “the Republic of Belarus having supplied, quite efficiently, passenger equipment to various towns across Ukraine by offering flexible financing tools, good prices, good technology. On the one hand, we were puzzled; on the other, this was yet another step which we think is wrong from the standpoint of free trade,” he said.
Belarus has long been analyzing all of Ukraine measures imposed on Belarus, he said. “I can state that, aside from those two examples I mentioned, Ukraine currently has eight anti-dumping and special protective measures in regard to Belarus. They involve anti-dumping duties on matches, starch, construction material, cement, incandescent bulbs, i.e. a whole list of products which falls under restrictions as Belarusian export to Ukraine,” he said.
Belarus repeatedly offered Ukraine (including at the level of the prime minister as a co-chairman of the intergovernmental commission and at the level of the foreign trade regulator, which in Belarus is the Foreign Ministry) holding consultations, using mechanisms to remove barriers, clarifying the sides’ positions, Guryanov said.
“Never once did Ukraine show a desire to respond to our requests and only in isolated cases, already after the decisions were made regarding restrictive measures against Belarus, we were simply told that at some point the Republic of Belarus’ long-time decisions started to be seen as unfriendly and discriminatory and for that reason it became necessary to restrict our supplies to Ukraine,” he said.
Belarus took measures, which effectively limit imports from Ukraine through additional controls, and then only temporarily, as per the international trade rules that are in active use in many countries, he said.
“We are ready for talks any moment. We once worked with Ukraine quite actively to remove barriers to mutual trade. For some reason, now these barriers began to re-appear, not at our initiative,” he said.
During the bilateral consultations “Ukraine hinted that what it saw as unfriendly and discriminatory measures on Belarus’ part were, for some reason, certain decisions made by the Eurasian Economic Union, which is now the responsibility of five countries, not just Belarus,” the diplomat said.
“Yet the counter- or some unfriendly restrictive measures needed to be taken exclusively against Belarus. For the simple reason that we are still not a member of the World Trade Organization. Which apparently means that it is okay to punish us in breach of free trade principles, in breach of international agreements which create conditions for normal competition, for normal export-import operations. So, once again: this is nothing to do with the current souring of our relations, aviation issues, and so on. This is down to the trade negotiations, pure and simple, which were supposed to lead us to remove the barriers, as I exhorted our Ukrainian colleagues to do,” the first deputy minister said.
Belarus is introducing an individual licensing regime for a number of Ukrainian goods for six months, Deputy Economy Minister and Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka has said.
“According to recent information, Belarus has introduced an individual licensing regime for the import of a number of Ukrainian goods: confectionery, chocolate, juice, beer, chipboard and fiberboard, wallpaper, toilet paper and packaging, bricks, ceramic tiles, glass ampoules, agricultural machinery for sowing, washing cars and furniture. This decision was approved by resolution of the Council of Ministers of Belarus No. 292 dated May 26,” the trade representative wrote on Facebook on Friday. He said that the decision will enter into force ten days after its publication and is designed for six months.
“Such actions are groundless and discriminatory. The individual licensing regime means manual control over the import of Ukrainian products to Belarus. The government is consulting with manufacturers to eliminate the negative consequences of the discriminatory actions of the Belarusian government,” Kachka said.
At the same time, the trade representative of Ukraine said that these actions of Belarus are related to trade restrictions introduced earlier.
“Everyone is asking not to tie all the events together,” Kachka wrote amid comments that such a decision by Belarus could be the answer to the ban on flights in its airspace of Belarusian airlines imposed by Ukraine.
According to him, this also applies to news about a possible interruption in the supply of A-95 gasoline to Ukraine from Belarus.
“News on gasoline, according to operational information, is associated with technological processes at the refinery of the Belarusian manufacturer and without long-term consequences for the import of gasoline from Belarus. The policy to diversify supplies will be strengthened. But do not panic now,” Kachka said.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has recommended that EU air carriers and non-EU airlines avoid Belarusian airspace, Western media outlets reported on Wednesday, citing the EASA.
Non-EU airlines authorized by the EASA when conducting operations to, from, and within the EU are advised to avoid operating in Belarusian airspace, it said.
The agency cited safety reasons following the May 23 Ryanair flight incident, which called into question the ability of the Belarusian authorities to provide safe air navigation services.
A Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius was forced to land at the Minsk airport while passing through Belarus’s airspace on May 23. It was reported that the plane landed after the Belarusian security services were warned of a bomb threat. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered that a MiG-29 fighter jet be scrambled to shadow the passenger plane, which was carrying Roman Pratasevich, editor of the Telegram channel Belarus Golovnogo Mozga (Belarus of the Brain) and former editor of the Telegram channel Nexta, both designated as extremist in Belarus, and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen and student of the European Humanities University based in Vilnius. The Belarusian authorities have detained both of them.
As of the end of May 2021, direct flights to and from Belarus to Ukraine are operated by Motor Sich (Ukraine) and Belavia (Belarus) airlines.
According to the data of the State Air Traffic Services Enterprise (UkSATSE), Belavia in 2020 was the third in terms of the number of flights operated in Ukraine’s airspace (10,644 flights) after the Turkish Türk Hava Yolları (14,623 flights) and Ukraine International Airlines (14,406 flights).
Belavia flies from Minsk to Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Odesa and Kherson.
Motor Sich operates flights on the Minsk-Zaporizhia route twice a week.
Ukraine stops air traffic with Belarus from May 26, the relevant decision was made at a government meeting on Tuesday, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
“From 00:00 on May 26, Ukraine will stop air traffic with Belarus,” Shmyhal wrote in the Telegram channel.
The prime minister said the government instructed the Infrastructure Ministry, the the State Air Traffic Services Enterprise (UkSATSE) to take the necessary measures for this.
In addition, Ukrainian airlines and aircraft will be prohibited from flying in the airspace of the Republic of Belarus.
The State Border Guard Service also received an order to stop the registration of passengers traveling from Belarus or to Belarus at the customs points of airports.
“The situation with the forced landing of Ryanair’s aircraft in Minsk is a violation of the Convention on International Civil Aviation. The decision of our government is aimed at ensuring the safety of flights and passengers,” Shmyhal said.
Ukraine in January-March 2021 imported 1.812 million tonnes of petroleum products (according to foreign economic activity code 2710: petrol, diesel fuel, fuel oil, jet fuel, etc.), which is 10.4% more year-over-year (1.642 million tonnes). According to the State Customs Service, petroleum products were imported to the tune of $894.99 million, which is 8.2% less than in January-March 2020 ($ 975.061 million).
Fuel was imported from Belarus for $416.163 million (the share is 46.5%), Russia for $283.626 million (31.69%), Lithuania for $85.767 million (9.58%), other countries for $109.434 million (12.23%).
In addition, Ukraine exported 113,426 tonnes (49.4% compared to January-March 2020) of petroleum products for a total of $53.49 million (17.4%). The cost of fuel delivered to counterparties from Turkey amounted to $12.338 million, the Czech Republic some $11.778 million, Latvia some $10.936 million and other countries to $18.438 million.
