This Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1344 amends existing regulations concerning tariff rate quotas for certain agricultural goods. The main goal is to implement tariff measures on goods originating from or exported from Belarus and Russia, as outlined in Regulation (EU) 2025/1227. These measures aim to reduce the EU’s vulnerability to potential coercive actions by Russia and Belarus by preventing market disruption and protecting EU producers. The regulation modifies the rules for import and export licenses to reflect these tariff measures.
The regulation amends Implementing Regulations (EU) 2020/761 and (EU) 2020/1988 and Regulation (EC) No 218/2007. The amendments primarily involve modifying the “Origin” and “Specific entries” sections in the annexes of these regulations. Specifically, for various tariff quotas, the “Origin” section is updated to exclude Belarus, Russia, and sometimes other countries like the United Kingdom, China, Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, Australia, the United States of America, India, Pakistan, Guyana, Canada, Indonesia, Chile, Greenland, Iceland, New Zealand, and Uruguay. The “Specific entries” section is updated to require that licenses include a statement indicating that they cannot be used for products originating in the excluded countries.
The most important provisions for practical use are the changes to the “Origin” and “Specific entries” sections of the relevant tariff quotas. Businesses involved in importing agricultural goods under these quotas need to ensure that their products do not originate from the specified excluded countries (Belarus, Russia, and others, depending on the specific quota). They also need to ensure that their import licenses include the required statement in Section 24, indicating that the license is not valid for products from those countries. This regulation is designed to prevent products from Belarus and Russia from benefiting from the tariff quotas, supporting the EU’s broader trade policy objectives. ****
