Premium
UDMR's Kelemen: We have to help the Ukrainians, but not at the cost of destroying Romanian agriculture.
In an interview with AGERPRES, national leader of the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) Kelemen Hunor, a deputy prime minister in the Ciuca Cabinet, says that the Austrian interior minister's visit scheduled for today -- with the most likely topic related to the Schengen area -- will not bring any clear decision, it will be a general message, "a message we had before when we want to enter the Schengen area and that message usually reads like this: 'you are on the right track, continue.' That's a not enough if you ask me," he added.
Referring to the scandal of the transit of Ukrainian agricultural produce to third countries, Kelemen says that Romania, as usual, did not seek to make unilateral decisions related to the European Commission's decision to exempt from customs duties produce from Ukraine. He adds that "had it depended only on me, then I would have halted it, at least temporarily."
"We have to help the Ukrainians, because they are being attacked by Russia, but our help must be extremely well thought out and not at the cost, not with the result of destroying the Romanian agriculture. The compensations must be exactly what losses have been, because the spring agricultural campaign has started, the producers need a lot of products, fertilisers and so on; beyond the actual works, they need money. And, if they are left with wheat, maze, sunflower in storage facilities, they cannot sell their produce, and then they have no money."
According to Kelemen, even if we manage to ensure the transit of Ukrainian grain, sealed, without staying in Romania, it will reach other European countries, where we cannot monitor them, and their grains, transformed into finished products, will also return to us, on the market. And, from what he says, "Ukrainians are using about 200 herbicides banned in the European Union (...) it's a very serious problem here, we're not talking about trade, we're talking about consumer health. And that's why I think that, in the future, on the one hand we have to make a huge effort by controlling everything that enters Romania, on the other hand we have to try to help the Ukrainians, but not by destroying the Romanian agriculture. We have to get real compensations, which near between a few hundred million and a billion if my numbers are correct, for everything that Romania means - sunflowers, maze, wheat and of course we have to protect our consumers. We could ensure -- and that was actually the idea -- a green way for produce to third countries, but, if we crossed Romania's borders, we still don't know what will happen to the produce. The European Commission recognised that Ukraine, with the European Union's offering, made a profit of over EUR 50 billion in 2022 from wheat only," added Kelemen.
When asked about the idea about holding some of the 2024 elections simultaneously, Kelemen said "Holding elections simultaneously at this moment is almost impossible to achieve. (...) So, from a constitutional, legal point of view, for the time being, I don't see the possibility of holding the local and general elections simultaneously. I'm not talking about political expediency, because it's a very subjective matter. Some say it would be very, very good and wouldn't confuse us at all, others say it's not appropriate from a political point of view, but I'm only speaking constitutionally: legally it's not possible.'
