What does the compromise look like that Kyiv should use to resolve disputes with countries that have previously banned Ukrainian agricultural product imports?

The Ukrainian government has presented a relevant project to the European Commission. The volumes of Ukrainian agro-exports will be determined by Ukraine with each of the "five" countries (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria).

This compromise option looks like the best way out of the situation and satisfies the European Commission, but not Poland and Hungary. They have announced their withdrawal from negotiations and applied unilateral trade restrictions.

Kyiv reacted quite harshly to this decision and announced two responses: filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization and imposing a ban in response.

The problem is that these responses are clearly contradictory, as Olena Omelchenko of the law firm "Ilyashev and Partners" noted in the column Compromise with nuances: How Kyiv sees the way out of grain conflict with neighbouring countries.

The Ministry of Economic Development has announced that Ukraine has initiated requests for consultations with Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary within the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Essentially, this marks the opening of the first stage of dispute settlement within the WTO mechanism, as noted by the author.

Although the demands concern the three countries, not the EU, Ukraine has put the European Commission in a rather challenging position, Olena Omelchenko believes. She explains that in the future, these demands will become one, and the European Union will still be a party to it.

"So the European Commission will have to defend its decision to lift restrictive measures or the interests of Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia," the lawyer writes.

Most likely, the author assumes that Kyiv will consult with Brussels and rely on a compromise, as the EU has the right to withdraw unilateral preferences granted to Ukraine after the war.

There is no text of the demands on the WTO website yet. Undoubtedly, Ukraine will insist that the restrictive measures of the three countries are discriminatory since they apply only to Ukrainian imports, not to the imports of other WTO members, Olena Omelchenko points out.

In her opinion, the Ukrainian government consciously chose this mechanism because of its publicity, but speed is clearly not its advantage.

"Therefore, as it became known, the Ukrainian government is considering an alternative course of action – retaliatory measures. However, there is a problem here, too. Such bans violate the WTO norms.

This path may prove effective, but with a high probability, it will lead to an even greater deterioration of the situation and a violation of the law," the lawyer concludes.

According to her, Article 29 of the Ukrainian Law "On Foreign Economic Activity" makes it possible to ban and restric imports from countries that have taken discriminatory and unfriendly actions. However, an embargo can only be imposed after an investigation has confirmed the unfriendly actions of the country.

But, Olena Omelchenko notes, Ukrainian legislation does not allow imposing such restrictions against WTO member states and refers to resolving the dispute under the procedure provided by the World Trade Organization.

The only WTO member country against which Ukraine has imposed a ban is Russia. The lawyer reminds that this became possible only after changes to the law, which defined that such measures could be applied to a country recognised by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as an aggressor state and/or an occupying state.

So, Kyiv has chosen a dispute settling mechanism that takes a couple of years, ignoring a faster and no less reliable tool – arbitration under the Association Agreement.

While challenging the actions of our neighbouring countries, Kyiv plans to introduce measures in response. And it looks very controversial in the legal sense," the lawyer concludes.