Ukraine has filed complaints with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against Poland, Slovakia and Hungary after they banned imports of Ukrainian grain and other products, a senior Ukrainian official announced on Monday.
First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko said that Ukraine considers such bans a violation of the international obligations of EU members.
“It is critically important for us to prove that individual member states cannot ban the import of Ukrainian goods. That’s why we filed lawsuits through the WTO,” Sviridenko said in a statement on the government’s website.
“At the same time, we hope that those countries will lift the restrictions and that there will be no need to resolve our relations in the courts for a long period of time (…) We need solidarity and the defense of farmers’ interests,” she added.
Three EU members decided on Friday to impose a unilateral ban on the import of Ukrainian grain and other products from the country, after the European Union announced that it would not extend the restrictions that expired at midnight on Friday.
Farmers in Bulgaria erected temporary blockades on highways and access roads with Romania and Greece on Monday to protest against the lifting of the ban on grain imports from Ukraine and announce that they are ready to drive tractors to Sofia.
When the European Commission decided on Friday to end restrictions on imports of products from Ukraine, the Bulgarian government voted to lift the ban, breaking with three other EU members – Poland, Hungary and Slovakia – who announced they would maintain the restrictions.
Controls over the import of Ukrainian grain allowed five countries – Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – to limit trade in products such as grain, corn, rapeseed or sunflower from Ukraine on their own market.