The proposal by the European Commission to extend duty-free trade for Ukraine for another year remains unchanged and supported

"Earlier, the same decision was approved by the ambassadors of EU member states within COREPER.

This procedural vote launches the political approval of this decision, which should be restored already without discussion.

I want to thank specifically for the Ukrainian parliamentary support - Stepan Chernyavsky and Ivan Chaikovsky for their direct advocacy in the European Parliament. And of course, Markiyan Dmytrasevych, Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, and everyone who advocated this week in Brussels.

Just a week ago, more than 100 amendments were submitted to the agricultural and trade committees regarding the European Commission's proposal. Almost all of them proposed to narrow the access of Ukrainian products to the EU market. The reason is the demands of farmers and the upcoming elections to the European Parliament.

Due to active work with member states - and primarily Poland - with Euro-institutions and Euro-deputies, the number of amendments that were voted on was reduced to two. And they did not garner enough votes.

This already means that normal European policy prevails over the pre-election race for media-attractive decisions.

After all, no matter how difficult it is to build internal agricultural policy in the EU, the support of the European Parliament for us is politically important. So that no one speculates that selfishness prevails over solidarity with Ukraine.

Also for us, this is the first practical training in negotiations on the accession in terms of agricultural policy. A kind of learning by doing. The agricultural lobby in the EU already thinks in terms of pre-accession negotiations. In order for them to be comfortable for some market players in the EU, they need to put Ukraine in the worst possible basic conditions.

Unfortunately, the agricultural section in the schedule of upcoming negotiations is somewhere in the middle of the queue. And this means a long time before negotiations on substance begin. All this time, Ukrainian agricultural products will be under pressure from the agricultural lobby of the EU.

Therefore, we find ourselves in a situation from Lewis Carroll's Alice (I feel how ambiguous this sounds for literary scholars) - we need to run hard just to stay in place.

Well, we also have a physical comparison - United Vessels - constructive dialogue with Poland translates into constructive dialogue in Euro-institutions. And vice versa. Therefore, all work in Brussels is primarily about unblocking borders.

As the Poles say - pozdrawiam I do zobaczenia - the next event for Ukraine is the Polish intergovernmental commission on Monday and the next round of intensive negotiations," Taras Kachka comments.

Press service of the Association of Milk Producers (Ukraine)