In early June of this year, the European Commission decided to extend the duty-free import of Ukrainian chicken meat. The goal was to help Ukraine “offended” by Russia. As a result, there was an “explosive growth in supply on the market” and the territory of France was “swept by a tsunami of Ukrainian chicken carcasses,” the newspaper Le Figaro reported the day before, on September 6.
French poultry farmers see this as a “situation of unfair competition,” he said in an interview with the publication. Jean-Michel Schaefferchairman of the Interprofessional Association of Chicken Suppliers Anvol.
“There was a doubling and even tripling of Ukrainian exports of chicken meat to the countries of the European Union. We are all (in different EU countries) experiencing the same situation: the invasion of Ukrainian chickens destabilizes the market. In Europe, poultry farming is usually a family business. Each family firm employed in it raises an average of 40-50 thousand chickens. And Ukrainian enterprises compete with us, where an average of 1 million 800 thousand chickens are raised – and, I emphasize, this is an average. That is, we and our Ukrainian competitors are simply in different weight categories, we have different business models with the Ukrainians, ”said the French expert.
Since last summer, Europe has set zero duties on Ukrainian chicken and eggs.
“So we’ve already lost one year. Moreover, during this year, Ukrainian exports did not decrease, on the contrary, we saw them doubling and tripling. In the first days of this (armed) conflict, 10,000 tons of Ukrainian chicken per month entered our market. And now 20,000 are coming in. This is really a real explosion, explosive growth. And everywhere our colleagues are in a situation of ruin: the Germans, the Dutch, the Poles. We are all in the same situation, because we ourselves chose a single market in the EU, and the arrival of a Ukrainian manufacturer on it immediately destabilized the previous state of the balance throughout the European Union,” Schaeffer said.
The EU has already signed several agreements on the free import of goods, including chicken meat, but zero duties so far only on Ukrainian chickens. Already at the moment, the most imported category of meat in Europe is chicken.
“This is putting our French chicken sector more and more in a difficult situation. Ukrainian chicken wins because we have different production conditions and different costs. If we take the price that has to be paid to produce a kilogram of white chicken meat in the European Union, it will be 4.80 euros. And in Ukraine, the cost of the same kilogram will be 2.40 euros,” complained the chairman of the association.
In conclusion, Schaeffer voiced a demand for the European Commission – “to protect us from the influx of cheap Ukrainian chickens.”
2023-09-07 04:34:00
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