iGrain India - Brussels. A strong effort is being made to stop the import of agricultural products from Russia and its ally Belarus, which are embroiled in a war with Ukraine, into the European Union.
The European Union is supporting Ukraine and is putting various kinds of pressure on Russia to end the war.
According to the latest information, the Council of the European Union has accepted the proposal to dramatically increase the rate of customs duty on agricultural products imported directly or indirectly from Russia and Belarus.
The increase in import duty will be effective from July 1, 2024 when the new marketing season begins in Russia.
Under the new proposal, a customs duty of 50 percent will be imposed uniformly on the import of peas, chickpeas, sunflower, mustard and safflower from Russia and Belarus to EU member countries, whereas till now these products were kept in the duty-free category.
The interesting fact is that there is no mention of lentils or dry edible beans in the official document.
Similarly, import of canary seed, buckwheat, fonio and quinoa will attract a customs duty of 95 euros per tonne.
Till now, only canary seed was import duty free whereas fonio and quinoa were attracting customs duty of 37 euros per tonne.
Although Russia exports wheat, maize, barley and oats along with many other agricultural products on a large scale, it has been decided to increase the import duty on pulses and oilseeds only.
Many countries of the European Union import these products in large quantities from Russia because they are cheap.
Both sides will be affected when the high import duty comes into effect because the European Union will have to buy expensive products from other countries.