The Social Democratic Party (PSD) requests the government to devise in a fast-track procedure a regulatory act providing for the temporary suspension of grain imports from Ukraine.
"To this effect, the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Tourism, which manages Romania's trade policy, must work together with the Ministry of Agriculture in order to draft the regulatory act that should be adopted in case the issue isn't settled in a timely manner at the level of the European Commission. The PSD emphasizes that this measure could have been discussed during Wednesday's meeting of the EU trade ministers with the EC Vice-President in charge of trade, and which was also attended by the agriculture ministers, had Mr. Entrepreneurship Minister Cadariu not shunned his responsibility in the field of foreign trade and not showed up at the meeting," the PSD said in a release on Thursday.
The PSD considers that a joint solution across the European Union is needed to solve the problems caused by Ukrainian exports.
"However, if this joint position doesn't take shape within a reasonable interval, Romania's situation will become particularly serious given that the other states in the region have already taken unilateral measures to ban imports from Ukraine. Therefore, the government of Romania will be compelled to resort to suspending imports until the European Commission provides an adequate response to this problem. At the same time, PSD emphasizes that, of all the EU states, the weightiest support for Ukraine in terms of grain exports came from Romania. More than half of these exports, specifically over 14 million tons, crossed the territory of our country, and Romania must maintain this important support by ensuring the transit lanes for Ukrainian grains to third countries," the Social Democrats also said. AGERPRES