The European Beekeeping Association (EBA) has called on the European Commission to delay a planned increase in duty-free honey imports from Ukraine, warning that the move risks worsening pressure on the EU’s honey market without stronger quality controls, AFP reports.

The Commission has agreed to raise the annual duty-free import quota from 6,000 tonnes to 35,000 tonnes. In a letter to the Commission, reported by Slovenian outlet STA, the EBA argued that the European market is already facing “growing competition from cheap imported honey, often of dubious quality and unclear origin in the absence of effective control mechanisms.”

Ukraine is a major honey producer and able to swamp the European market with cheap honey. As part of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTA) agreement in place before the war with Russia broke out in 2022, the EU granted Ukraine only a tiny duty-free honey import quota that typically was used up in just the first few weeks of the New Year.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU temporarily suspended the quota system to allow unfettered access to EU market to provide Kyiv an important revenue stream. Nevertheless, Ukraine continues to run a €20bn trade deficit with the EU.

The free access to the EU markets by Ukrainian agricultural products has cause friction with the Central European countries. Poland unilaterally banned the import or transit of Ukrainian grain after cheap Ukrainian grain wrecked the Polish grain market in 2023. Nominally, Brussels has the mandate to set EU trade policy making the Polish ban illegal, but Warsaw has ignored orders to restart the trade. Only July 5 the exemptions on the quota system expired and without the full support of all member states Brussels is currently in the process of trying to reintroduced some exemptions on an ad hoc basis.

The EBA is one of those products in the firing line. The association said there were “a number of legislative gaps that allow honey to be falsified,” citing insufficient border inspections, poor traceability, and the absence of unified methods at EU level for verifying authenticity. It urged that any increase in Ukrainian imports be postponed until “more reliable… honey quality control systems” are in place.

While expressing support for aid to Ukraine, the EBA said “any new trade agreement must also take into account the interests of European farmers, especially in the sensitive beekeeping sector.”

Founded in February 2024 and based in Slovenia, the EBA represents 55 organisations from 30 countries, covering more than 414,000 beekeepers. The Beekeepers’ Union of Ukraine is among its members.