Ukrainian sugar quota in the EU: “bitter pill” for French beet growers
Paris – The volume of 100,000 tons of Ukrainian sugar imported per year, authorized by Brussels, “is five times higher than the volume authorized before the war: it is equivalent to the production of a sugar factory in the European Union,” said Guillaume Gandon, vice-president of the General Confederation of Beet Growers (CGB), in a statement on Monday.
The Commission announced on June 30 that it had reached a “principle agreement” with Ukraine regarding free trade, particularly on the sensitive issue of agricultural imports.
In order to support Kiev in the face of the Russian invasion, the EU had established a customs duty exemption on Ukrainian agricultural products since 2022 and until June 5 of this year.
But European farmers were calling for a return to the quotas in place before the war, set by a 2016 agreement.
To reassure them, the EU promised quotas on products such as wheat, corn, honey, poultry, eggs, and sugar: quotas higher than those of 2016 but lower than the records reached in recent years. (July 7, 2025)
