Unlike farmers, EU sugar-using industry wants more imports from Ukraine

The EU needs “more and not less” supply from Kyiv, according to sugar-using food producers such as Coca-Cola, Barilla, and Lactalis – a statement directly contradicting the demands of EU sugar beet growers, while Romanian farmers are blocking the borders in protest at the growing Ukrainian agricultural imports.

The European Commission, at the same time, is struggling to find a compromise to extend the trade benefits to Ukraine.

“The Committee of European Sugar Users is shocked to see calls for blocking imports of sugar from Ukraine” reads a statement from CIUS, an association representing sugar users from the food and drink sector, reacting to the farmers’ call for a cap on the influx of commodities from Ukraine.

The Commission is considering prolonging for another year the liberalisation of Kyiv imports after it expires on 5 June 2024, EU sources said. Discussions are ongoing, Euractiv understands, amid divergent views between trade and agri services. But the aim is to adopt a proposal in short time.

“The EU has a structural sugar deficit”, the CIUS statement continues, as industry needs “more sugar from Ukraine (and Europe and other sustainable sources) – not less!” and “certainty that Ukraine will remain open as a source of supply long term, as alternative sources are so limited”.

According to the Commission Farm Market Data, sugar imports from Ukraine surged from 40,172 tonnes in 2021/22 to 406,777 tons in 2022/23.

This pushed the European beet growers to join with the farmers associations COPA and COGECA and other food producers and ask the Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski for restrictions on the influx of agricultural commodities from Ukraine.

But the European bakery wares, chocolate, confectionery, soft drinks, canned fruits and jams producers suggest that the surge in the import is needed “to reduce the EU sugar deficit”, and “provide the EU food industry with capacity and confidence to increase high value add exports, thus contributing to EU economic growth”.

According to the Commission’s latest snapshot of the EU market, “the 2023/24 global sugar balance is expected to be at deficit for the fourth year in a row, caused by lower production in main producers India and Thailand, mainly due to unfavorable weather conditions caused by El Niño”. 

The controversy in the sugar supply chain happens as the Commission is struggling to find a balanced solution to the influx of Ukrainian foods and goods into the EU market, which is pushing farmers’ remuneration down in frontline countries – Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania.

On Monday, Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis met with Polish ministers,  pledging to be “mindful of concerns of Polish farmers in relation to Ukraine agri-food imports”.

The Polish farmers resumed and then suspended their blockades at the border with Ukraine at the start of the year. Unlike them, Romanian farmers formed a united front with truck drivers, taking the baton of the border protests.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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