No More Russian Fertilizers: EU Imposes Tough New Customs Duties

Renew Europe strongly supports the European Commission's new proposal to increase customs duties on Russian and Belarusian agricultural products and fertilizers, a critical step toward reducing Europe's economic dependencies on Russia. The proposal introduces a 15% customs duty increase on previously unsanctioned Russian agricultural imports and a 50% tariff on approximately 100 products by removing Russia's "most favoured nation" status. Additionally, it establishes a gradual increase in duties on fertilizers, which will take effect in the next 3 years for the European market to adapt without disruptions.Ľubica Karvašová (Progresívne Slovensko, Slovakia), Renew shadow rapporteur on this file commented : "Today, we take further steps to target the Russian war economy. Russia refuses to engage in ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine. Russia doesn’t want peace; on the contrary, it has deliberately weaponized our dependencies. Not anymore. As Europe moves decisively away from Russian fossil fuels, time has come to do the same with fertilizers, which are only gas imports in another form. This is also a matter of both European food and economic security. We are ready to work with the European Commission and Member States to jumpstart our own EU fertilisers industry, which was, for too long, undermined by the Russian artificially cheap imports."The European Commission's proposal tackles Russia's flooding of the EU market with artificially cheap nitrogen-based fertilizers. These new...