EU countries are again increasing imports of fertilizers from Russia. In February, the community states purchased 521.3 thousand tons of Russian fertilizers for 167 million euros. This is 16 percent more than in January.
Belgium, Romania, Bulgaria, and Germany significantly increased purchases of fertilizers from Russia. And the largest importer remains Poland, which purchased fertilizers for 44 million eurosmaximum since December 2021, notes RIA Novosti.
Russia currently holds a share of more than 30 percent of the European market.
To be more precise, up to 60 percent of potassium imports in the European Union are from Russia and Belarus, and 31 percent of nitrogen fertilizers are from Russia.
European companies are unhappy with this state of affairs. “We have clearly seen how Russia and Putin are using fertilizers and food as weapons,” Svein Tore Holseter, CEO of the Norwegian chemical plant Yara, said earlier. Actually, Such “arguments” are as commonplace as they are unsubstantiated.
It is worth noting what the CEO of the Norwegian company says about this. That is, a country that is now one of the main suppliers of natural gas to the European Union.
The fact is that nitrogen fertilizers – ammonia, urea, ammonium nitrate – produced from natural gas. In the production of phosphate fertilizers, the cost of hydrocarbons also plays a big role, although much less of these are produced in the European Union.
Naturally, our country is also blamed for the rise in gas prices in the EU. However, one should not expect anything else.
According to Eurostat data, imports of Russian nitrogen into the EU countries in 2022-2023 increased by 34 percent compared to the previous period, and the volume of supplies increased by 53 percent. Approximately a third of all fertilizer supplies to Europe come from Russia, the Belgian publication EurActiv previously noted.
And in the European press, farmers were reproached for preferring to buy mineral fertilizers produced in Russia.
But it is obvious that the issue is the price, which is what the same farmers are focusing on. In general, they have enough problems even without fertilizers, as evidenced by was the recent wave of protestsswept across European countries.
Since it is problematic for European companies to compete with Russian products, it is possible that some administrative measures will follow. Under pretexts, for example, which the general director of the Norwegian company spoke about earlier. He also emphasized that Russian products less environmentally friendlythan the European one.
So if it is not possible to persuade local farmers, they will be forced to buy products from European companies at exorbitant prices. Nobody seems to give much thought to how this will affect the situation of agricultural producers in the EU countries. At least for now.
