Agriculture chamber head: Ukraine’s EU entry would bring ‘drastic changes’ for Hungarian farm sector

Balazs Gyorffy told MTI that the addition of an agricultural area equalling roughly a third of the EU’s territory would fundamentally upset the current farming support and food security system.

Ukraine today is in no way fit to join the EU, Gyorffy said, adding that it was impossible to predict the consequences of the country’s EU membership for the European and Hungarian farm sectors.

Gyorffy said Ukraine could not even meet the criteria set for EU farmers and food producers. He said that Ukraine potentially not having to meet those conditions or adhere to the relevant laws would distort competition in the sector.

He said the suggestion that Ukraine could be admitted to the EU through a simplified accession process was unfair to the countries that had been striving to meet the bloc’s strict criteria for several years or even decades. Referring to the Balkans, Gyorffy said those countries had been making strenuous efforts to fulfil the criteria set by Brussels.

“Applying different rules of procedure and principles to the accession of certain member states would destroy the credibility of the functioning of the EU,” he said.