The UN World Food Program (WFP) has expressed its readiness to help European countries get rid of the excess amount of Ukrainian grain that is harming their economies, said Martin Frick, director of the WFP headquarters in Brussels and Berlin, writes Politico.
The World Food Program is considering sending surplus Ukrainian grain products, which are concentrated in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, to those countries of the world that need them most.
European Commission officials met with representatives of five Eastern European countries after four of them, except Romania, imposed a ban on Ukrainian grain imports.
WFP is confident that supplying grain to some of the world’s poorest countries will be critical in the context of the global food crisis. The leaders of the World Food Program expressed their readiness to work with the European Commission to find such opportunities as soon as possible.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to a blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea. In turn, the EU raised tariffs and created transit corridors through Eastern Europe for the transport of grain. This caused discontent among local farmers.
The proposal of the World Food Program was made on the eve of the meeting of the Council on Agriculture. It is expected that during the meeting, five countries, led by Slovakia, will present their proposal for the purchase of Ukrainian grain by the European Union in cooperation with the WFP, as well as discuss the possibility of its transportation to third countries.
WFP is already delivering food products exported from Ukraine as part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which was concluded in July last year with the mediation of the UN and Turkey. This agreement allows for limited deliveries.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to meet with UN Secretary General António Guterres in New York in the coming days to discuss the future of this agreement.
