In accordance with the Agreement on rules and procedures for the settlement of disputes of the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization, Ukraine submitted requests for holding consultations with Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary within the framework of the WTO. First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Economy Yuliya Svyridenko announced this on September 18, the press service of the Ministry of Economy reported.
“It is fundamentally important for us to prove that individual member states cannot ban the import of Ukrainian goods. That is why we file lawsuits against them in the WTO. At the same time, we hope that these states will remove their restrictions and we will not have to clarify relations in the courts for a long time,” Yuliya Svyridenko explained.
According to her, as a result of the unilateral ban on the import of Ukrainian agriproducts by Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, domestic exporters have already suffered and continue to suffer significant losses due to downtime, additional costs, and the impossibility of fulfilling foreign economic agreements.
“Ukraine sees this as a violation of its international obligations by the three EU countries. Also, the Ukrainian side believes that unilateral actions of EU member states in the field of trade are unacceptable and all member states of the union should coordinate and agree on trade policy, as it belongs to the exclusive competence of the EU,” the minister said.
Source: Apkinform