Ukrainian agriculture urges EU to talk details, not panic, in future membership negotiations

Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi and the sector's main lobby organization in Brussels doubled down on their commitment to integrating Kyiv's geopolitically powerful farming sector into the EU system on Oct. 7.

Their respective interventions came one day after the European Commission published a view on how the future of enlargement could work.

Ukraine's agricultural might could mean that the EU needs "targeted arrangements to significantly limit financial support and market access for sensitive agricultural products," the document argues.

However, Vysotskyi said permanent restrictions on access to the EU's single market are a non-starter, in written comments first shared with Politico and seen by the Kyiv Independent.

"Ukraine cannot agree to such an approach," the Ukrainian minister said.

Likewise, the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club (UCAB) put out a press statement saying, "Ukrainian agricultural producers cannot be expected to bear the full economic cost of alignment with EU standards while being denied the corresponding perspective of full participation in the EU Single Market."

For both Vysotskyi and UCAB, part of the solution relies on baking transition periods into the enlargement process, just as was the case in previous rounds of EU expansion, which would give the bloc and Ukraine time to adapt to one another and stretch out disruption over a longer period of time.

"Transitional periods are a normal part of EU enlargement, and Ukraine is ready for them," Vysotskyi said.

But "transition should facilitate integration, not become a mechanism for permanently excluding Ukrainian agriculture from the internal market," UCAB notes.

Ukraine's farming sector has already begun complying with EU rules, a process that is expensive, essentially irreversible, and undertaken only because it comes with the promise of a level playing field in the EU market.

It is market access rather than financial support that matters most for Ukraine, Vysotskyi said, as the sector already operates with little state support.

But that has not stopped French far-right leader Marine Le Pen already playing to the fears of French farmers that Ukrainian counterparts would take away their share of EU subsidies.

EU farms are typically small-scale, uncompetitive, and dependent on the bloc's Common Agricultural Policy for generous subsidies that keep them operational.

Ukraine's farming sector, by contrast, is a giant capable of competing on the world stage, and with that size comes geopolitical leverage.

Because of that, the European Commission is clear that while Ukraine should gain market access as part of EU membership, Ukrainian agriculture needs to remain competitive on the world stage.

"Our budget can never compensate for gains that Ukraine's very competitive — the only real competitive agriculture sector in Europe — can gain in the world," a senior EU official told the Kyiv Independent, ahead of the publication of the Commission's new plans.

To overcome that obstacle, highly technical negotiations need to take place.

Vysotskyi seems to mirror the European Commission's thinking that for each specific product, there should be "a substantive discussion about adaptation periods, the volumes of market access, and safeguard mechanisms."

That could mean one rule for Ukrainian chicken, another for wheat, another for plant proteins, and so on.

Decisions "must take into account the situation in each specific sector and must not turn into permanent restrictions for the entire Ukrainian agricultural sector," Vysotskyi said.

And UCAB says that "the Ukrainian agricultural sector is ready to contribute constructively to this work."

UCAB calls for agricultural businesses, associations representing the sector, and EU agricultural organizations to all be included in a dialogue on Ukraine's agricultural integration.

"Ukraine is preparing to become part of the European Union. Its agricultural sector should not merely be accommodated within the future European agricultural model. It should be involved in designing it," reads the UCAB press statement.