Ukraine submitted the lawsuit at the WTO on Monday, the money.pl website reported.
“It is crucially important for us to prove that individual [European Union] member states cannot ban imports of Ukrainian goods,” Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in a statement. “That is why we are filing lawsuits against them.”
On Friday, the EU’s executive Commission announced that it would not prolong the bloc's ban on the import of wheat, corn, rapeseed, sunflower and sunflower oil from Ukraine to Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
In response, Warsaw, Budapest and Bratislava imposed national embargos on the import of Ukrainian grain.
Apart from the WTO lawsuit, Ukraine is preparing to retaliate against Polish fruit and vegetable exports, Kyiv’s Trade Representative Taras Kachka has told the Politico news service.
Ukrainian farmers say Polish grain embargo is ‘justified’
However, the chief of the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation (UAC), Leonid Kozachenko, said these measures “make no sense,” money.pl reported.
Kozachenko told reporters: “These countries [Poland, Hungary and Slovakia] are helping us in a different area. We know that today war is the main issue. Everyone is helping us fight the occupying enemy, so there’s no need to file lawsuits against them.”
He added that Poland or Hungary were not the final destination for Ukrainian grain, but transit countries, and transit remained allowed.
For these reasons, “farmers’ groups have called on the Ukrainian government to drop the WTO lawsuit against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia,” Kozachenko said.
He added that “the concerns raised by Poland and other countries” over the possible influx of cheap Ukrainian grain “have real justification.”
He argued that “some of the Polish and Ukrainian companies have designed schemes to channel Ukrainian grain to Poland’s domestic market through transhipment centres in Poland,” as cited by money.pl.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Tuesday is day 573 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: money.pl, Politico