By Luiza Ilie and Pawel Florkiewicz
BUCHAREST/WARSAW (Reuters) -Romania looked set on Tuesday to follow three other countries in banning Ukrainian grain imports, a setback for Kyiv as it tries to unblock exports through eastern Europe and salvage a wartime deal on shipping grain from the Black Sea.
Failure to resume exports into eastern European countries or secure an extension of the Black Sea grain deal would trap large amounts of grain in Ukraine, hitting its exports and causing further economic problems for Kyiv as it battles Russian troops.
Talks between Kyiv and Warsaw went into a second day after European Union member states Poland, Hungary and Slovakia imposed import bans to protect their markets from an influx of cheaper supply following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But Romania’s ruling Social Democratic Party increased pressure on Kyiv by saying it would ask the coalition government to approve an emergency decree enforcing a temporary ban on Ukrainian grain imports though it wants transit to continue.
“PSD will ask the governing coalition to make a political decision to enable … the government to issue the decree,” said the party, which includes the agriculture minister in its ranks.
Ukraine’s agriculture minister is due to hold talks on Wednesday with Romania, whose Black Sea port of Constanta has processed some 12 millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain since the war started.
Large quantities of Ukrainian grain have been trapped by bottlenecks in eastern and central Europe as low global prices and demand mean grain cannot easily be sold on.
The bottlenecks have reduced prices and hurt sales by local farmers, putting political pressure on governments in the region.
Poland, whose ruling nationalist Law and Justice party faces an election this year and counts on rural areas for support, has gone further than others by stopping Ukrainian grain and food in transit, as well as banning imports.
Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus said Warsaw was seeking a solution allowing transit through Europe.
“We are talking with the EU as well as with Ukraine to find solutions. We want these products to go to Europe, but go deep into Europe,” he said before the second day of talks in Warsaw.
‘SHUTDOWN’ RISK
The EU has criticised Poland, Hungary and Slovakia for putting individual bans in place, and EU envoys are set to discuss the measures on Wednesday, a senior EU official said.
Bulgaria has also been considering a ban. The Czech Republic has said it will not impose a ban on its own but wants an EU solution.
A Ukrainian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov was also holding talks in Turkey on Tuesday on the status of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is set to expire on May 18.
The initiative, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations last July, was designed to alleviate global food shortages by allowing exports to resume from three ports that had been blockaded in Ukraine, which gets a large slice of its gross domestic product from grain and food sales.
It is unclear whether it will be extended because Russia says a separate deal meant to ease its own agricultural and fertilizer exports has not been upheld.
Kyiv said on Monday the Black Sea grain corridor was threatened by “shutdown” because Russia was blocking inspections of cargo ships.
Russian news agency RIA said on Tuesday the inspections had restarted but a senior Ukrainian official told Reuters: “Nothing has been resolved.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Russia to resume its cooperation, saying in Tokyo that it was “breaking its promises to countries around the world that are dependent on grain that has not been able to get out of Ukraine over the last few days.”
(Reporting by Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Koper in Warsaw, Luiza Ilie in Bucharest, Krisztina Than in Budapest, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Humeyra Pamuk in Tokyo, Writing by Jason Hovet and Timothy Heritage, Editing by Jason Neely and Sharon Singleton)
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