EU Relief for Poultry Farmers Nears as Kiev’s Chicken Targeted
EU Relief for Poultry Farmers Nears as Kiev’s Chicken Targeted
(Bloomberg) --
A European Union plan to curb imports of poultry meat from Ukraine cleared the final political hurdle.
The European Parliament voted on Tuesday to include chicken breasts that have wing bones attached in an EU duty-free import quota for boneless versions of the meat from Ukraine. The Strasbourg, France-based EU assembly also endorsed a parallel plan to raise the overall quota by 50,000 metric tons.
The moves mark a compromise between extending EU trade preferences to Ukraine and protecting the bloc’s own poultry producers from a surge in EU imports of Ukrainian bony chicken breasts, which have faced no restrictions.
Under the revised system, EU imports from Ukraine in excess of the duty-free quota will be subject to a levy of 100.8 euros ($111.12) per 100 kilograms. The new regime still needs the final approval of EU governments -- a step that’s usually a formality.
EU imports of bony chicken breasts from Ukraine rose 15-fold to 55,500 tons -- or 91.4 million euros -- last year compared with 2016, according to the 28-nation Parliament and the European Commission. In 2016 and 2017, Ukraine accounted for 1.1% of total EU poultry imports, according to the commission, the bloc’s executive arm.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Zoe Schneeweiss, Peter Chapman
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