Regulation 2024/1652 - Amendment of Annex I to Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff - Main contents

Official Journal

of the European Union

EN

L series

2024/1652

10.6.2024

Union imports of cereals, oilseeds and derived products as well as beet-pulp pellets and dried peas have significantly increased since the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

While the Russian Federation remains a relatively small supplier of cereals, oilseeds and derived products as well as beet-pulp pellets and dried peas to the Union market, it is a leading worldwide producer and exporter of those products. Given its current volumes of exports to the world, the Russian Federation could easily and quickly reorient significant volumes of supplies of those products to the Union, causing a sudden inflow of products from its large existing stocks, thereby disrupting the Union’s market. Moreover, there is evidence that the Russian Federation is currently illegally appropriating large volumes of cereals and oilseeds produced in territories of Ukraine, which it illegally occupies, and routing them to its export markets as allegedly Russian products.

The Union’s erga omnes common customs duties are the currently applied most-favoured-nation (MFN) tariffs on imports of cereals, oilseeds and derived products as well as beet-pulp pellets and dried peas and they differ widely. Depending on the product concerned, those tariffs are either set at zero or very low, or they are already high and no trade takes place.

It is necessary to take appropriate tariff measures in order to prevent cereals, oilseeds and derived products as well as beet-pulp pellets and dried peas originating in the Russian Federation from continuing to enter the Union market on terms that are equally favourable to those applied when those products have other non-preferential origins. Those appropriate tariff measures are expected to contribute to preventing the Russian Federation from directing significant quantities of those products to the Union to politically and economically weaken it, thereby disturbing the Union market, creating societal tensions and frictions within the Union and threatening the proper functioning of the customs union. That threat has been considered pursuant to Article 32, point (d), of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and, therefore, measures to avoid serious disturbances in the economies of Member States should be taken under Article 31 thereof.

Appropriate tariff measures should be taken simultaneously in respect of the Republic of Belarus in order to prevent imports to the Union from the Russian Federation being diverted through the Republic of Belarus, given its close political and economic ties with Russia, where Union tariffs on imports of relevant goods from the Republic of Belarus remained unchanged.

Accordingly, imports of cereals, oilseeds and derived products as well as beet-pulp pellets and dried peas originating in or exported directly or indirectly from the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus should be subject to higher customs duties than imports from other third countries, whenever the currently applicable customs duties are set at zero or are not sufficiently high. Where those products do not originate in or are not exported directly or indirectly from the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus, they should not be subject to those higher customs duties, even when they transit...