The European Commission is not yet ready to resume priority exports of Ukrainian grain by land and rivers through the EU in connection with the blockade of Ukrainian ports, and also cannot say whether it will provide the “emergency aid to farmers“ requested by Kiev in the amount of EUR 220 million, said the representative of the European Commission Louise Boge.
“I can confirm that we have received this request“, she answered in Brussels when asked by Ukrainian journalists about Zelensky's request for additional aid for Ukrainian farmers in the amount of EUR 220 million due to the blockade of the ports.
She stressed that the EU is “committed to maintaining support for Ukraine's access to world grain markets“, but is not yet ready to respond to Ukraine's request; for this “a number of details must first be clarified“.
“The European Commission needs to clearly assess the impact of the situation on the markets in order to determine the next steps in support of Ukraine“, she said. “It is necessary to understand how the harvest situation in Ukraine develops in the near future. It is also necessary to carry out a full analysis of logistics, including the functioning of the Black Sea routes and the current state of the solidarity lines," she said, referring to the land and river routes for the export of Ukrainian grain through the EU countries, which were actively used in 2022, but then they stopped working after the crisis of the European oversupply of Ukrainian grain.
On August 7, Kiev turned to the European Commission with a request for EUR 220 million in grants to support farmers against the backdrop of the country's seaports being idle. Due to the prolonged blockade of the ports, the export of agricultural products in the 2026-2027 marketing year may decrease from 64.4 million tons to 29.6 million tons, as noted in Kiev. In addition, as early as October, storage facilities may be completely filled; more than 9 million tons of grain and oilseeds risk being left without the necessary storage capacity.
Since July 22, the ports of Greater Odessa - Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny, through which the main flow of Ukrainian grain exports, as well as products of metallurgical enterprises, passed - have not received or sent a single foreign cargo ship. The downtime of the Black Sea ports occurred at the height of the harvest campaign. Ukrainian agricultural producers, despite the significantly high cost of alternative routes, are forced to export their products through the Danube ports of Izmail, Reni and Ust-Dunaysk, the Romanian port of Constanta, as well as by road and rail to the country's western border. The collapse has already begun at Ukrainian land checkpoints.