Return to pre-war conditions: The European Union will not extend the “trade visa-free” regime with Ukraine after June 5

The European Union will not extend the “trade visa-free regime” with Ukraine beyond June 5 and will return to pre-war trade conditions.

This was reported by Ekonomichna Pravda, citing a European official familiar with the negotiations.

“Starting from June 6, the autonomous trade measures—trade preferences for Ukraine introduced by the EU after the war began—will expire. Conditions will return to what they were before the war. Both the trade preferences and the current restrictive measures on certain goods like chicken meat, eggs, honey, and others will end,” the source said.

He added that there is ongoing discussion about potentially maintaining trade preferences for certain Ukrainian exports to the EU, such as steel.

It’s worth noting that if the EU reinstates quotas and tariffs on Ukrainian products, it would be a serious blow to Ukraine’s economy, which is already struggling amid a growing global trade war.

The EU originally introduced these trade benefits to help Ukraine boost revenue from exports, but they led to protests from European farmers, who complained about falling profits due to a flood of Ukrainian goods on the market. Farmer protests continued throughout 2023 and 2024 in various European countries. In Poland, for instance, farmers even blocked border checkpoints to prevent Ukrainian trucks from entering.

As a result, the EU eventually agreed to some concessions for its own agricultural sector. Bordering countries such as Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia imposed unilateral bans on the import of Ukrainian products.

Recently, Ukraine warned of the “truly devastating” consequences of ending duty-free trade with the EU.