Ukraine producers’ path to EU market to be very difficult

It will be “extremely difficult” for Ukrainian producers to enter the European market, even if the EU-Ukraine Free Trade and Association Agreement is concluded,” Russia’s Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov stated in an interview with Itar-Tass. “Even if trade barriers are removed, other obstacles will remain, including the elementary lack of knowledge (by Ukrainian businessmen) of Europe’s giant regulatory framework. Or just the European market’s saturation,” he said. The diplomat cited as an example the situation with the products of another candidate for a free trade zone with the EU - Moldova. “Take the case of Moldovan wines. The European Union has recently made a political advertising gesture, promising to buy all the Moldovan wine from which Russia has refused,” he recalled. “The EU annually spends €500 million from its budget on the distillation of their own Europe wines, non-demanded on the market, into industrial alcohol - it is noteworthy that not even into ethyl alcohol, from which they made hard liquor, which is in also excess supply in the EU, but into industrial. And yet you want me to believe that Moldovan wine would be served in Parisian restaurants?” the Russian ambassador asked rhetorically. “There are indeed some very good wines in Moldova. Alas, there are more not very good wines there. Both in Georgia and in Moldova we know the territory of their vineyards, and we can very simply calculate the volume of a certain type of wine they can produce per year from a certain variety of grape. And when the volume of this variety of wine that is supplied Russia is 4-5 times higher, we have the natural question - where does it come from?” he concluded, adding that the EU can well make such calculations.