BRUSSELS, Belgium: EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday Brussels was proposing raising tariffs on Russian and Belarusian grain to protect Europe’s farmers and punish Moscow over its war on Ukraine.
The announcement came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky complained to EU leaders that it was not fair Russian grain continued to have “unrestricted” access to their markets, while Ukrainian imports were being limited.
“It will prevent Russian grain from destabilising the EU market in these products. It will stop Russia from using the revenues from the export of these goods,” the head of the European Commission said after an EU summit in Brussels.
A day earlier, the EU struck a deal to cap duty-free imports of a range of Ukrainian farm goods — which were allowed in the wake of Russia’s invasion but have drawn fierce protests from farmers in the bloc.
In his address to leaders, Zelensky warned that curbs on EU trade with Ukraine undermined his country’s “ability to withstand Russian aggression.”
“Any loss in trade is a loss of a resource that stops Russia,” he said.
Five European Union nations — Poland, the Czech Republic and three Baltic states — had appealed jointly to the European Commission to impose a full ban on grain imports from both Russia and Belarus.
Under World Trade Organization rules, Russian agricultural imports have until now been exempt from EU import duties.
While the EU has taken aim at huge swathes of Russia’s economy in waves of sanctions since 2022, it has taken care not to target the farm or fertilizer sectors — for fear of destabilising the global cereal market, and undermining food security in Asia and Africa.
The 27-nation bloc had initially dropped tariffs on Ukrainian imports in a bid to help keep the country’s economy afloat after the Russian invasion in February 2022.
It changed course after months of protests by farmers, which have been whipping up anti-establishment sentiment ahead of EU elections, extending the exemption but with “safeguards” to stop lower-cost Ukrainian imports from flooding the market.
EU chief proposes raising tariffs on Russian grain
https://arab.news/8gp7p
EU chief proposes raising tariffs on Russian grain
- The EU struck a deal to cap duty-free imports of a range of Ukrainian farm goods
French-Israeli activists hit out at ‘complicity in genocide’ case
- Israel’s retaliation flattened much of Gaza and left more than 71,800 people dead, according to the health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations
NETANUA, Israel: Two French-Israeli activists facing legal summons in France for “complicity in genocide” denounced on Sunday what they described as a political trial.
The summons were issued in July last year for lawyer Nili Kupfer-Naouri of the Israel is Forever group and Rachel Touitou of the Tsav 9 group over protests in 2024 and 2025 in which trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza were blocked at checkpoints.
The summons call for the two to appear before an investigating magistrate but not for their detention.
Speaking at an event in Netanya in central Israel, Kupfer-Naouri asserted that “this is not an individual case, this is a state matter... this is a political trial.”
Touitou told AFP that she had “protested peacefully, my only ‘weapon’ was an Israeli flag,” adding she had been motivated by accusations of Hamas looting aid while hostages were “rotting” in militants’ hands.
“International law cannot be hijacked and instrumentalized for political ends,” she added.
Kupfer-Naouri, who has filed a slander complaint in France against organizations involved in the case, said: “You cannot be accused of complicity in genocide when no court, either French or international, has ruled that there is a genocide in Gaza.”
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliation flattened much of Gaza and left more than 71,800 people dead, according to the health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
A ceasefire has been in place since October 10, though both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violations.
