Lithuanian Agriculture Chamber (LAC) apply in writing to concerning the prohibition or imposition of duties on imports into the eu of food and agricultural products from the Russian federation and Belarus.
EU-Russia relations have been strained since 2014 due to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, support for separatist groups in Eastern Ukraine, destabilizing policies in neighboring countries, disinformation and interference campaigns, and human rights violations inside the country.
In 2022 February 24 after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the remaining political, cultural and scientific cooperation was suspended, and in March after the EU adopted the Strategic compass for security and defense and recognized that Russia poses a long-term and immediate threat to European security and condemned the fact that Russia turned food into a weapon during the war against Ukraine and thus caused a global food security crisis, today it is clear that these measures is not enough, because huge quantities of vegetables and other agricultural and food products are imported into the EU countries from Russia and its ally – Belarus, which unbalances the established market in the EU countries, dumped prices, as a result of which Lithuanian and Polish greenhouse vegetable growers suffer losses and go bankrupt danger.
In the public space, the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of Russia (March 2024) openly boasts that in 2024 it will double, even up to 118 thousand. t, increased the export of plant-based products to the EU, which brings huge profits to the producers, traders and budgets of the aggressor countries, while economic damage is done to the producers of the European Union countries and the food and agricultural products sector is destroyed. Such a situation testifies to the means of hybrid warfare and undermines the power and resilience of the EU.
EastFruit international information and analytical platform for the fruit and vegetable business in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus announces that this year (2024) will be a challenging year for EU fresh producers, with prices for fresh potatoes, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes and other fresh vegetables on the market being significantly lower in the year 2024 compared to the previous years because of the significant increase in the importation of fresh vegetables from Russia.
We appeal to Copa – Cogeca with a request to urgently apply to the responsible EU authorities to ban the import of agricultural and food products from Russia and Belarus or to introduce adequate/appropriate customs duties.