Polish authorities have agreed with farmers on subsidies per ton of grain and temporary closure of the border with Ukraine from April 1 for the transit of some agricultural products, polskieradio24.pl reported.
According to the newspaper, the document was signed by representatives of the protesting farmers, Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Seckerski and the ministry’s state secretary Michal Kolodziejczak.
The agreement envisages maintaining the current embargo on agricultural products from Ukraine, which has been in place since mid-September last year. It concerns in particular wheat, corn, wheat flour, rapeseed and sunflower.
In addition, the Minister of Agriculture must ask the Council of Ministers of the European Union to suspend the transit of these products through Polish territory as of April 1 this year.
Both sides in the signed document also consider it necessary to develop detailed rules for agri-food trade between Poland and Ukraine, but also note that the difficult situation in agriculture is the result of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Farmers’ representatives in the agreement declare their government’s support for the changes to the Green Agreement. It is primarily about replacing the mandatory transfer to a voluntary ecosystem and simplifying other rules for farmers.
AUTHORITIES, BORDER, FARMERS, GRAIN, POLAND, transit products, UKRAINE
Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Igor Klymenko held a meeting with Ambassador of the Slovak Republic in Ukraine Marek Shafin, during which the parties discussed issues of bilateral cooperation, the press service of the Ministry.
” Igor Klymenko held a meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Slovak Republic in Ukraine Marek Shafin. They discussed issues of bilateral cooperation and support of Ukraine in resisting Russian armed aggression. In particular: Transfer of Bozena mechanized demining vehicles for the State Emergency Situations Service this fall, which will facilitate the process of demining of Kherson region”, – stated in the message published in the Telegram channel on Tuesday.
In addition, the parties discussed the search for relatives of people who went missing, the exchange of experience with international partners in this area, as well as the preparation of readmission agreements, the fight against crime and cooperation in the field of chemical, environmental and nuclear safety on the border.
The interlocutors also discussed issues of migration policy, because at the moment about 130 thousand Ukrainian citizens are officially staying in Slovakia.
The meeting was also attended by the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Kateryna Pavlichenko, Police Attaché, official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Slovakia at the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Ukraine Ludvik Šoltes and representatives of the Ministry.
Ihor Klymenko, Minister of Internal Affairs, SLOVAKIA, UKRAINE, Марек Шафін
The EU countries have not yet been able to agree on the upper limit of duty-free imports of Ukrainian grain, as well as the need to extend restrictions to other products from Ukraine, the German edition of n-tv reported. “In the debate on the upper limit of duty-free imports of Ukrainian grain, the 27 EU countries continue to disagree,” the publication said.
The German media cite information from European diplomats who say that there is also no clear majority among member states on the European Parliament’s proposal to extend the restrictions on poultry meat, eggs and sugar from Ukraine proposed by the European Commission in January.
Polish Radio’s correspondent in Brussels, Beata Plomecka, also confirmed that the European Parliament, influenced by farmers’ protests across Europe, last week backed an amendment to the regulation on Autonomous Trade Measures submitted by Polish MEP Andrzej Galicki.
MEPs agreed to impose import restrictions on sensitive goods, notably honey, a range of cereals, poultry meat, chicken eggs and sugar.
Poland is also lobbying to tighten import quota requirements for Ukrainian sensitive agri-commodities by using data on Ukrainian imports not only for the years 2022-2023, but also 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion, when there were no massive shipments of agricultural products from Ukraine.
“However, this support is absent among member states. Only Poland and the ‘frontline’ countries are demanding that the demands of the European Parliament be taken into account. At best, most countries want to reduce from three weeks to two the Commission’s mandate to impose a ban on EU imports of products whose imports destabilize the market situation,” Polish Radio stressed.” Negotiations on a possible restriction of imports of Ukrainian agricultural products in the European Council are scheduled for Tuesday evening.
As reported, in many EU countries since January 2024 there have been mass protests of farmers, who express dissatisfaction with the “green” course of the European Commission and the rise in the price of material and technical resources. One of their demands is to strengthen control over alleged unfair competition from Ukraine. Farmers claim that Ukrainian products that were once destined for Africa or the Middle East now remain in Europe, undermining the position of local producers. They also point out that Ukrainian producers are not subject to the EU’s higher environmental and social standards.
The work of the non-governmental National Association for Humanitarian Demining has been launched in Ukraine, its head Meri Hakobyan said on Monday during the presentation of the association.
“The key mission of the association will be to promote the rapid and professional clearance of Ukraine’s territories of explosive hazards with the involvement of all interested stakeholders, including mine clearance equipment manufacturers, accredited demining operators, and government agencies,” she said.
Among the main directions of Hakobyan’s activity she singled out joining efforts and communication with state authorities on humanitarian demining, development of recommendations on improvement of normative-legal support in the sphere of humanitarian demining, assistance in improving the quality of professional training of industry specialists, development, discussion and making proposals on reasonable types of classifiers, standards, operational reliability and safety of demining, raising public awareness,
The primary task of the Association will be the preparation of the state professional standard of the new profession “Humanitarian Demining Deminer”, as well as the creation of a system and methodology for training such deminers, preparation of amendments to the law of Ukraine on “Mine Action” and communication with the media.
As Deputy Minister of Economy Ihor Bezkaravaynyy emphasized, the National Association for Humanitarian Demining is an initiative coming from business and civil society and may become a precondition for the formation of a demining market in the state.
In particular, he said, there are currently 32 humanitarian demining operators in the country, of which about 20 are Ukrainian in the status of Limited Liability Companies.
“This shows that the Ukrainian business goes into the sphere of demining, is ready to invest resources, money, to develop in this direction and develop the market,” – said the Deputy Minister.
In turn, the Ambassador of Japan in Ukraine Kuninori Matsuda said that one of the priorities of the Japanese government is precisely the provision of assistance to Ukraine in the field of humanitarian demining.
“We have been working with the Cambodian demining center for 25 years. We have developed many methodologies and will share our own developments and technologies with Ukraine … Japan will support the entire Ukrainian demining sector until the last mine in Ukraine is cleared,” he said.
He recalled that the Japanese government has already transferred to Ukraine 30 special tractors, dozens of wagons and pickup trucks to locate mines and another 22 special mine clearance vehicles will be transferred in June this year.
Ruslan Beregulya, head of the Main Directorate of Mine Action of the Defense Ministry, said that 950 people have been affected by explosive objects since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Of these, 289 have died and 661 have been injured or maimed.
Ukraine has fulfilled all obligations for the third revision of the EFF extended financing program and expects a positive decision by the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the allocation of the fourth tranche of about $900 million in the near future, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said.
“We are expecting a meeting of the board of the International Monetary Fund in the near future. It seems to me that the date of such a meeting is planned for March 21, at which a decision on Ukraine will be made,” he said on the national telethon.
According to Marchenko, these funds will be received immediately after a successful discussion at the Executive Board.
“So far we are fulfilling all our obligations. And I don’t see any particular problems for us to continue to fulfill these obligations in 2024,” the Minister of Finance emphasized, predicting further cooperation with the IMF under the EFF program.
He also noted that Ukraine still considers the basic option of receiving direct budget support from the United States this year, about which it receives constant assurances from the American side.
“We hope that a solution will be found in the lower house (of the U.S. Congress). There is now every reason for this. We hope that direct budget support will continue, this is important for cooperation with the IMF, for forming a pool of partners,” Marchenko said.
Net sale of dollars by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) rose from $133.7m, the lowest value in the last 11 months, to $262.6m this week, the regulator’s data show.
According to them, the sale of currency increased from $156.8 million to $263.0 million, while the purchase fell back to almost zero, although the National Bank managed to buy more than $50 million on the market in the previous two weeks after a long break.
The official hryvnia exchange rate weakened by almost 66 kop. – From 38.1410 UAH/$1 to $38.7998 UAH/$1 – the lowest level in the history of the national currency. At the same time, market participants note that the decline occurred with a relatively small volume of trading.
On the cash market, the hryvnia exchange rate followed the interbank rate, but with a smaller amplitude: a strong weakening in the first three days and relative stabilization at the end of the week. As a result, during the week it decreased by about 33 kop. – from UAH 38.53/$1 to UAH 38.86/$1. At the same time, according to the NBU, despite the weakening of the exchange rate in the first half of the week, the negative balance between the volume of foreign currency purchases and sales by the population decreased during these days: from $28.6 mln on Monday to $10.3 mln on Wednesday
At a press conference on March 14, representatives of the National Bank said that by the end of April they expect external financing in the amount of $10bn or more, which will allow to restore reserves, while before that Ukraine had received only $1.2bn since the beginning of the year.
At the same time, the NBU noted that such non-rhythmic external financing will not lead to any shocks on the currency market.
As reported, at the end of February, the NBU’s net sales fell to $1.50 billion from $2.53 billion in January, $3.55 billion in December and $2.45 billion in November.
However, in February, external support amounted to only about $0.8bn, so international reserves fell by 3.8% or $1.47bn to $37.05bn after falling by 4.9% or UAH $1.98bn in January.
The National Bank in January lowered its forecast for Ukraine’s international reserves at the end of 2024 to $40.4 billion from $44.7 billion.
