EU-Ukraine trade reset: what comes after tariff-free access expires?

Euronews

3 days ago

Since 2022, trade between the EU and Ukraine has been governed by a temporary framework known as Autonomous Trade Measures (ATMs). Introduced after Russia's full-scale invasion, the ATMs eliminated all tariffs and quotas on Ukrainian agricultural exports to the EU.
This offered a critical lifeline access to European markets for Ukrainian producers, especially for agricultural commodities such as grains, maize, eggs, and poultry, sustaining the country's wartime economy.
However, the ATM scheme is due to expire tomorrow (5 June), and it cannot be renewed, having already been extended once.
Despite efforts since late 2024, the European Commission has failed to secure a permanent or improved replacement, leaving both Ukrainian exporters and EU policymakers scrambling.
This delay has frustrated several EU member states, many of whom had expected the Commission to secure a sustainable agreement with Ukraine ahead of the expiration deadline.
The political timing didn't help: The Commission faced considerable pressure to avoid inflaming domestic tensions, particularly in Poland, where farmers have protested against the influx of Ukrainian imports.
With Poland's presidential elections now behind, Brussels hopes negotiations for a longer-term trade framework can finally move forward.
What happens when the tariff-free scheme expires? The most immediate consequence is the reintroduction of tariffs on Ukrainian agricultural goods.
In practical terms, this resets trade conditions between Ukraine and the EU to the situation before Russia's 2022 invasion, with tariff lines and quotas from the pre-ATM era reinstated.
According to Ukrainian officials, this could cost the country over €3 billion annually in lost export revenue.
Because the year is nearly half over, quota limits will be applied on a seven-twelfths basis for the remainder of 2025, proportionally reflecting the reduced time window.
The impact will be significant. In 2024, nearly 60% of Ukraine's total exports went to the EU, up from just over 39% in 2021, before the ATMs came into force.
The free access to EU markets has been a pillar of Ukraine's economic resilience during wartime, helping to stabilise currency flows and sustain public funding.
The loss of preferential market access is not merely an economic inconvenience: It could have direct consequences for Ukraine's ability to fund its war effort.
Vitalii Koval, Ukraine's minister of agrarian policy and food, highlighted during a recent visit to Brussels that agriculture represents a much larger share of Ukraine's economy than it does in the EU.
One in five Ukrainians works in the agricultural sector, and its performance directly influences national revenues.
Ukrainian MP Yevheniia Kravchuk warned that failure to secure even a partial solution could result in a 1% drop in GDP, further straining the country's wartime finances.
'Ukrainian companies have shifted their markets toward the EU. If exports decrease, tax revenues drop, those same taxes that fund our military,' she told Euronews.
The reintroduction of tariffs is also expected to suppress producer prices, increase market uncertainty and discourage private investment, hampering both recovery and reconstruction efforts in the longer term.
To avoid a sudden rupture in trade flows, the European Commission has prepared transitional measures to apply after the expiration of the ATMs. These were quietly approved two weeks ago by EU ambassadors as a precautionary step, though full details have yet to be published.
A Commission spokesperson described the transitional measures as a 'bridge' to allow time for a more comprehensive review of the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), which is the long-term trade agreement underpinning relations before the ATMs.
Crucially, the Commission has stated that future trade will be based on the DCFTA, not an extension of the emergency ATMs.
This marks a clear shift, disappointing Ukrainian hopes of maintaining the same level of market access they enjoyed under the tariff-free regime.
Negotiations toward a revised DCFTA began formally with a meeting in Brussels on Monday afternoon. While details remain scarce, a Commission spokesperson said more clarity is expected "in the coming days".
Earlier that day, EU ambassadors met to reaffirm the importance of establishing long-term, predictable trade relations with Ukraine, while also ensuring protections for European farmers, a politically sensitive group in several member states.
'It is an extremely important decision to be taken,' said MP Kravchuk. 'When I hear that, since the full-scale invasion, the EU has spent more on Russian gas and oil than on aid to Ukraine—and now we are talking about cutting economic access meaning that Ukraine's economy in the times of war will be shrinking—then it's a questionable position, rather than a partnership one.'
The EU's 27 foreign ministers are scheduled to meet their Israeli counterparts on 23 June for an EU-Southern Neighbourhood ministerial meeting which is aimed at deepening the bloc's cooperation with Israel as well as nine other southern partners including Algeria, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia.
'The objective is for Israeli representatives to be present at the meeting,' a senior Israeli official told Euronews, adding that the participation of Gideon Saar, Israel's foreign affairs minister 'is still to be confirmed'.
But the meeting comes at a time of unprecedented cooling of relations between the EU and Israel following the country's blockage of food from entering into Gaza and after Palestinian health officials and witnesses alleged recent shootings by Israeli soldiers of Palestinians headed for humanitarian aid sites. The Israeli army has said it fired 'near a few individual suspects' who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.
The meeting also comes after the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stated in late May that the bloc would examine if Israel has violated its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which defines the trading and diplomatic relations between both sides.
No timeline has been fixed for the review, which will be conducted by the EU's external action service (EEAS). Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein has "completely" rejected the direction taken in Kallas' statement, saying it reflected "a total misunderstanding of the complex reality Israel is facing".
The Netherlands, which tabled the move and is considered a firm ally of Israel, said that Israel's 'humanitarian blockade' on Gaza, where a limited quantity of critical supplies entered for the first time in more than eleven weeks on Monday, is in "violation of international humanitarian law" and therefore of Article 2.
An EU official said that the 23 June meeting involving Israel will not be a forum to discuss the ongoing war in Gaza but a routine gathering conducted under the EU's Southern Neighbourhood partnership, which is meant to strengthen existing cooperation with 10 southern neighbours on a wide range of issues, including governance, climate change, economic development, energy and migration. In addition, the EU is Israel's biggest trade partner, with the trading relationship valued at more than €45 billion each year.
The EU's Southern Neighbourhood partnership derives from the 1995 Barcelona Declaration which committed to turn the Mediterranean into 'an area of dialogue, exchange and cooperation, guaranteeing peace, stability and prosperity', according to an official Commission document. In 2020, trade between the EU and the region represented €149.4 billion and the bloc's imports were worth €58.0 billion.
In 2021, the EU 27 agreed to strengthen their partnership with the Southern Neighbourhood following the COVID-19 pandemic and meet their counterparts every year. Their cooperation is based on 'good governance, human rights and fundamental freedoms promotion and protection, democratic institutions and the rule of law", according to 2021 European Council summit conclusions.
One of the last EU-Southern Neighbourhood ministerial meetings took place in 2022 in Barcelona, where participants discussed regional cooperation as well as the war in Ukraine.