Ukraine will collaborate with European partners to introduce customs duties on Russian products that continue to be imported into the European Union, announced the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Andrii Sibiga, during a meeting with President Volodimir Zelenski.
*”The import of Russian products into the European Union is still ongoing. Currently, the import of products from Russia into the EU has decreased to 1.1% of the total import structure. At the beginning of the large-scale Russian aggression, this quota was 9.3%. So, a significant decrease, but imports still persist,” he said, according to The New Voice of Ukraine.
“We will collaborate with our European partners: if currently certain categories of products are not included in the sanctions packages, we will raise the issue of introducing customs duties”, Sibiga emphasized.
Zelenski clarified that this mechanism is also proposed by some of Ukraine’s close European partners.
“If there are not enough votes in the European Union to adopt the sanctions, there is another model – the tariff one, which requires a qualified majority”, explained the leader from Kiev.
In the current month of July, the US President, Donald Trump, declared that he is “very dissatisfied” with the aggressor country Russia and threatened to impose 100% customs duties, if a peace agreement with Ukraine is not concluded within 50 days.
Subsequently, the White House clarified that this is about introducing 100% tariffs for Russian products, as well as about secondary sanctions against countries that buy oil from Russia, if the agreement is not signed within 50 days.
The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, stated that, in case the White House imposes secondary taxes against the aggressor country Russia, European states should proceed similarly.