On July 17, nearly one year after it was signed in Istanbul, Russia decided to not renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) that allows Ukraine to export agricultural goods to global markets. As underlined by the secretary-general of the UN, this initiative has been “a beacon of hope in a world that desperately needs it.”
Before Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, a critical global food supplier, a fifth of the world’s barley came from Ukraine, as well as a sixth of the corn and an eighth of wheat. After Russia invaded Ukraine, attacking grain fields and silos and blocking Ukrainian ports, global food prices spiked to record levels and endangered much needed food supply for many importer countries. The BSGI aimed to re-establish a vital route for agricultural exports from Ukraine and to lower global food prices.
Despite many challenges, it achieved its key purpose. Since August last year, the export of almost 33 million tonnes of grains and food from Ukraine to 45 different countries played an instrumental role in reducing global food prices by some 25 percent since the record high reached shortly after Russia’s attack. As public trade data show, over half of the grain, including two-thirds of the wheat, went to developing countries.
FOOD CRISIS
In addition, the BSGI ensured continued access to grain for the World Food Programme (WFP). This year, Ukraine supplied 80 percent of the wheat procured to support humanitarian operations in the most food insecure countries like Afghanistan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Without the Black Sea route, the WFP has to get its grain elsewhere at higher prices and with a longer lead-time at a time when the world is facing an unprecedented food crisis.
Russia’s decision was taken despite the UN secretary-general’s renewed proposals to work to address its concerns. In order to shift blame, Russia claims that its own agricultural exports were not sufficiently facilitated. This is not borne out by publicly available trade data, which show that Russia’s agricultural exports are thriving. Russia gained also important benefits from the memorandum of understanding with the UN on fertilizer exports, which had been brokered in parallel to the BSGI. The UN has worked relentlessly to clarify regulatory frameworks and engage with the private sector to find dedicated solutions across banking and insurance sectors. These efforts have been conducted in close collaboration with the EU and its partners.
PROPAGANDA
Contrary to Russian propaganda, the EU has indeed ensured that our sanctions have no impact on global food security. There are no sanctions on Russian exports of food and fertilizer to third countries and the EU has provided extensive guidance to economic operators, clarifying that these transfers to third countries are permitted. We have also worked with the UN to allow related payments.
Despite these well-known and verifiable facts, Russia decided to pull out of the BSGI, using food as a weapon and endangering the global food supply. Hours after withdrawing from the initiative, Russia started also to destroy Ukraine’s grain storage facilities and port infrastructure with daily targeted attacks, not only in the Black Sea itself, but also in the Danube. As an immediate reaction, wholesale wheat and corn prices saw their biggest increase since the start of Russia’s war of aggression. The increased food price volatility is likely to persist while Russia puts global food supply under deliberate stress, aggravating the global cost-of-living crisis and most acutely for food-insecure people in import-dependent countries. This is unacceptable and should be resolutely condemned.
As the world deals with disrupted supplies and higher prices, Russia is now approaching vulnerable countries, notably in Africa, with bilateral offers of limited grain shipments, pretending to solve a problem it created itself. This is a cynical policy of deliberately using food as a weapon.
ROUTES
In response to Russia’s irresponsible actions, the EU is active along three main lines. First, we will continue to support the tireless efforts of the UNs and Turkiye to resume the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Second, we continue to strengthen our “Solidarity Lanes” as alternative routes for Ukrainian agricultural exports to reach global markets through the EU. These lanes have allowed the export of more than 41 million tonnes of Ukraine’s agricultural goods so far, and we are increasing this as much as possible to mitigate the consequences of Russia’s termination of the BSGI. Third, we increased our financial support to countries and people most in need, providing 18 billion euros (US$19.8 billion) to address food security until next year.
We call on the international community and all countries to step up their own assistance in support of global food security. We ask all our partners to urge Russia to return to negotiations as the African Union already did, as well as to refrain from targeting Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure. With a clear and unified voice, we can get Russia to resume its participation to the BSGI. The world has a shared interest in responsible stewardship of global food security. We owe it to the people most in need.
Josep Borrell Fontelles is high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and SecurityPolicy and vice-president of the European Commission.
A Chinese diplomat’s violent threat against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi following her remarks on defending Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation in East Asian tensions, revealing Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and the fragility of regional diplomacy. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday posted a chilling message on X: “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” in reference to Takaichi’s remark to Japanese lawmakers that an attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival. The post, which was later deleted, was not an isolated outburst. Xue has also amplified other incendiary messages, including one suggesting
Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat,
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, entered service this week after a commissioning ceremony in China’s Hainan Province on Wednesday last week. Chinese state media reported that the Fujian would be deployed to the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and the western Pacific. It seemed that the Taiwan Strait being one of its priorities meant greater military pressure on Taiwan, but it would actually put the Fujian at greater risk of being compromised. If the carrier were to leave its home port of Sanya and sail to the East China Sea or the Yellow Sea, it would have to transit the
RSS