Weeks of exhausting negotiations between the European Commission and Kyiv over the summer, and then no less exhausting persuasions by the Commission of stubborn "skeptics" of Ukraine's European integration.
And finally, on October 13, the EU member states agreed on a package of agreements on the next stage of liberalization of access to the EU market for a wide range of products from the Ukrainian agri-food sector.
However, the adopted agreements generally represent a modest step forward compared toand with the pre-war trade conditions under the Association Agreement. Instead, compared to the EU trade preferences regime, which has been in effect since June 2022, Ukrainian agricultural producers are being asked to return to a tight Procrustean bed of tariff quotas for the import of agri-food products, calculated depending on the level of "sensitivity" of individual agricultural products for European farmers.
As a result, according to the calculations of the Ukrainian Agrarian Business Club (UKAB), compared to the previous preferential regime,
Ukrainian agricultural exporters will not receive about 900 million euros in export revenue per year.
The design of this "bed" was actually dictated by the unilateral embargoes of Poland, Hungary and Slovakia on the import of Ukrainian grain, protests by Polish farmers on the Ukrainian border, as well as the relentless, methodical lobbying in Brussels of influential European associations of farmers and agricultural cooperatives.
Thus, for goods classified as the highest level of "sensitivity", such as chicken, sugar, eggs, honey, wheat and corn, tariff quotas will increase the least from the pre-war level of the Association Agreement: from 90 to 120 thousand tons for chicken, from 6 to 18 thousand tons for eggs and albumins, from 20 to 100 thousand tons for sugar, from 1 to 1.3 million tons for wheat.
For the next category of goods recognized in Brussels as less "sensitive", such as starch and food additives, cereals, milk powder, quotas will be significantly expanded - up to the level of autonomous trade preferences in 2024. It is noteworthy that this category includes goods that are in high demand in the European food industry as important raw materials or ingredients.
The remaining goods that traditionally did not exhaust import quotas under the Association Agreement in pre-war times (mushrooms, processed dairy products, etc.) will receive a liberalized import regime without quota restrictions.
A clearly positive element for Ukrainian exporters will be the division of quotas between related categories of goods, thanks to which exporters will receive additional opportunities for access to the European market: for example, the allocation of a separate quota for certain categories of fruit juices (grape), for flour separately from cereals, etc.
The arrangements should enter into force after their approval by both parties within the framework of the decision of the Association Committee in trade configuration - a joint body of Ukraine and the EU, which the Association Agreement has authorized to develop and improve the trade regime between both parties in accordance with the requirements of the time.
The arrangements have a limited period of validity - until the end of 2028, after which the parties will have the right to review them.
Why do these agreements differ fundamentally from the usual format of free trade agreements?
And why should Ukrainian exporters, as well as Ukrainian officials, perceive them with caution?
First of all, these are the so-called safeguard measures regarding imports of Ukrainian agricultural products, which for the EU are perhaps the most important element of the entire structure.
Safeguard measures are a familiar trade policy and legitimate tool from the point of view of the rules of the World Trade Organization to prevent harm to domestic producers due to a sharp increase in imports and restore market balance.
WTO rules provide clear limits on the application of safeguard measures, the key ones of which are:
1) the need to prove a causal link between the increase in imports and harm to producers;
2) the obligation to justify the application of a safeguard measure by the results of a transparent and impartial investigation with the opportunity for interested parties to submit evidence;
3) the temporary nature of the measure, a clear schedule for its gradual winding down.
Unfortunately, the case of trade agreements with Ukraine is a vivid example of how the instrument of safeguard measures can be used as a means of influencing the trade policy of partners, and sometimes as a domestic policy tool to appease opponents and seek a shaky consensus.
In particular, the agreements establish extremely vague grounds for the introduction of safeguard measures, including both "economic", and "social" and "environmental" "difficulties" that the party may allegedly face in connection with the growth of imports.
The agreement avoids detailing the criteria that such grounds must meet. Moreover, the EU insisted that the aforementioned grounds may also manifest themselves at the "regional" level (national markets of member states), which gives the right to national capitals to become initiators of their application.
Such formulations have become a kind of price that the Commission was forced to pay for supporting the agreements with key member states.
However, the trade agreement is becoming a hostage to the turbulence in the national politics of the member states.
Instead, the EU places the responsibility for finding compromise solutions on the Ukrainian side.
In addition, the frequent use of national trade restrictions by member states calls into question whether the common European market is really such for the EU's trading partners, for the sake of access to which they must make concessions to Brussels.
The second inAn important detail of the agreement is Ukraine's obligation to implement into national legislation, in an accelerated manner, that is, within four years of the agreement's validity, a wide range of rather strict EU standards and requirements for keeping domestic animals and using plant protection products, in other words, agricultural production standards.
The Commission strictly links the validity of the updated quotas to Ukraine's progress in their implementation.
It is noteworthy that the Commission decided to take the issue of adaptation outside the framework of the pre-accession negotiations process (the task of which is actually to support and verify the implementation of EU legislation by the candidate country as one of the prerequisites for full membership).
However, unlike the logic of the pre-accession negotiations – implementation of legislation as a prerequisite for full access to the EU market, in this case Ukrainian farmers will receive as a "reward" for accelerated and full implementation of agricultural production standards only significantly limited quota access to the European market.
Unfortunately, the elements described above are a vivid symptom of a broader disturbing picture of the erosion of the system of international trade relations, a gradual departure from the principles of non-discrimination and the rule of law and rules in international trade to the classical maxim of the times of Ancient Greece: "the strong do as they please, and the weak suffer as they should".
It is unlikely that the European Union should be considered at the forefront of this sad trend. However, humiliating concessions on the European-American trade track, the actual rejection of the principles of free trade in the metallurgical sector and outright protectionism in agricultural trade leave little reason to hope for Brussels as the last bastion of the liberal world order.
In these conditions, the only effective strategy for Ukraine remains preemptive action.
And also patient, inconspicuous, long-term work with European consumers of Ukrainian goods, including the agri-food sector, European suppliers of equipment, technologies, and capital to form a significant pro-Ukrainian lobby capable of preventing or softening sharp corners in the interaction between Kyiv and Brussels.
And of course, at the same time, continue to "pound this rock" of pre-accession negotiations.