The European Union is reintroducing trade barriers after helping Ukraine double exports, leaving businesses scrambling for direction. Kyiv Post explains the changes and what lies ahead.
Three years ago, the EU opened the tariff-free doors for Ukraine’s exports – now Europe is rolling back to pre-war tariff quotas. Cancelling the duty-free trade has bred skepticism among Ukrainians, some wondering if the EU is as reliable a partner as it used to be.
“[Russian strongman Vladimir] Putin is counting heavily on our allies to lose patience – to grow tired of supporting us financially and giving us access to their markets. Now we’re seeing the EU reverting to pre-war trade conditions with Ukraine,” Volodymyr Fedorin, Forbes Ukraine co-founder, said during the Forbes Money conference at the end of May, in a conversation with one of the negotiators for the new trade regime, Ukraine’s trade representative Taras Kachka.