What new challenges Ukrainian exporters are facing and what could help them
Donald Trump is again threatening tariffs, the European Union is increasingly focused on protecting its own market and global trade is becoming less predictable.
What does this mean for Ukrainian business, why the European market is becoming more difficult for our exporters and how Ukraine is trying to balance between European integration and trade restrictions? Read more in the article (as part of a special project) by European Pravda co-founder Yurii Panchenko and Olena Omelchenko of the law firm "Ilyashev & Partners": Trade almost without rules: how EU and Ukraine are responding to chaos that has become Trump’s tool.
After the expiration of the EU’s autonomous trade preferences, the bloc shifted to a more restrictive regime for certain Ukrainian goods, particularly through expanded tariff quotas and new safeguard mechanisms.
As the past year has shown, even these measures have not eased tensions: several EU member states continue to push for stricter controls on imports of Ukrainian products.
Moreover, the issue has expanded beyond agriculture.
Although preferential access for Ukrainian metallurgical products remains, new EU climate tools, especially the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), pose additional risks to the competitiveness of Ukrainian exports.
The mechanism is currently in a transitional phase, but it is already clear that its full implementation could significantly affect Ukrainian producers' positions on the European market.
Ukraine is negotiating with the EU on possible exemptions or special conditions under CBAM, but the outcome remains uncertain.
The situation is further complicated by changes within Ukraine’s negotiating team. Such institutional shifts inevitably affect both the pace of negotiations and internal coordination.
However, the key challenge is not just institutional restructuring.
With limited resources, the government must prioritise and the priority is clear: EU accession talks and fulfilling integration requirements.
According to current plans, Ukraine aims to close most negotiation chapters within the next 12–18 months, laying the groundwork for a future membership agreement.
Within this framework, many current trade problems are viewed as temporary, expected to be resolved gradually through integration into the EU single market.
This also means that some immediate challenges faced by exporters receive less attention in day-to-day trade policy.
Given that the EU sees enlargement as a long and complex process, Ukrainian businesses will continue operating under conditions of partial integration, and all the associated market access limitations, for quite some time.
In this environment, the role of business itself becomes crucial.
Ukrainian companies increasingly need to: systematically communicate market access barriers to the government, consolidate positions at the industry level, propose concrete solutions from trade defence tools to adaptation to new EU regulatory requirements.
Effective use of trade defense instruments and strong cooperation between business and the state are becoming critically important.
The broader takeaway: it is time to systematically defend Ukrainian exports and producers – both domestically and internationally.