Ukraine’s Agrarian Policy Minister predicts preservation of food transit through Romania, Hungary, Slovakia

Romania, Hungary and Slovakia will not restrict the transit of agricultural products from Ukraine, but negotiations continue on the issue of its import into the territory of these countries in the import regime, Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky said at an extraordinary meeting of the Coordinating Council under the Ministry of Agrarian Policy on Tuesday evening.

As one of the participants of the meeting told Interfax-Ukraine, according to the minister, import to Poland in the transit mode will be resumed if there is a T1 declaration and using the SENT system, which allows tracking the movement of cargo through the territory of Poland and seals for the cargo.

Solsky added that the batches of agricultural products that will be imported to Poland in the transit mode from 00:00 on April 21 will continue moving across the country, accompanied by Polish customs officials.

The issue of transit by rail with reloading cars for broad-gauge railway (1,520mm) to cars for narrow-gauge railway (for 1,435 mm) is still open.

The ban on the import of agricultural products in line with the list from the annex to the order of Minister of Economic Development and Technology of Poland Waldemar Buda dated April 15, 2023, has not yet been lifted.

Earlier it was reported that Ukraine and Poland agreed to resume the transit of agricultural products that were on the list of prohibited imports: it will resume at night from April 20 to April 21, 2023. Additional control measures will be applied to transit. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland, customs, tax and other services will accompany the transport to the destination. In addition, the SENT mechanism and electronic seals will be applied, with the help of which each batch of goods will be tracked.

Poland on April 15, after the congress of farmers, adopted a unilateral decision to temporarily suspend the import of any agricultural products from Ukraine for the period until June 30, 2023. This happened despite the fact that on July 7 a bilateral agreement was reached with Ukraine on the temporary suspension of exports of only four crops – wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower, while transit continued, but with tougher conditions that the parties planned to quickly agree on.

Similar decisions were then taken by Hungary and Slovakia.

Source: www.en.interfax.com.ua