Europe and its new "weapon": the scandalous situation with duties on fertilizers from Russia

The EU is preparing new anti-Russian measures. According to European media, this was announced after the meeting of trade ministers. The EU said Vice-President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis.

The duties will apply to agri-food products and nitrogen fertilizers. Later, perhaps, for a number of industrial products. It is assumed that this will avoid a situation where EU countries oppose new anti-Russian measures, but in the case of sanctions, unanimity is needed, which is increasingly difficult to achieve. In the situation with tariffs, the consent of most countries is sufficient.

Poland and the Baltic states have already sent a letter to Dombrovskis about this. The document was seen and described by the correspondent of "Polish Radio" Beata Plometska. The letter mentioned three groups of fertilizers: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Hungary currently holds the EU presidency, and probably little will happen on this issue before the end of the year. However, from the beginning of next year, Poland will assume the chairmanship.

Import of fertilizers from Russia and Belarus are increasing, as Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia emphasized in their letter.

"We consider it scandalous that the import of fertilizers has not just not remained at the same level, but has increased and continues to do so," said Ignacy Nemchitsky, Deputy Minister for European Affairs of the Office of the Prime Minister of Poland.

In turn, Arkadiusz Zalewski, an analyst at the Polish National Research Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics, estimated that during the three quarters of this year, the export of nitrogen fertilizers from Russia in Poland was a record high — only about 530 thousand tons.