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The European Union ready to tax Russian fertilizers starting in July

by AI | 22.May 2025 | Europe in brief AI

The European Parliament approved on Thursday a surtax on millions of tons of fertilizers imported from Russia each year, despite farmers’ fears of a surge in global prices.

This photo taken on May 28, 2013 shows workers working at Uralkali, a Russian potash fertilizer plant, in the city of Berezniki, in the Ural region, more than 1,200 kilometers east of Moscow. (PHOTO / ELEONORE DERMY/AFP)

Brussels – A large majority of the left, center, and right (411 in favor, 100 against, and 78 abstentions) voted on Thursday in the European Parliament to tax imports of Russian fertilizers, while the far right opposed it.

The Russian government condemned the measure. Europeans are “shooting themselves in the foot” and will “end up with more expensive fertilizers,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Starting in July, the European Union will implement customs surcharges and gradually increase them until 2028, in order to reduce the influx of nitrogen fertilizers from Russia and its Belarusian ally.

More than three years after the invasion of Ukraine, it is necessary to stop “feeding the war machine” of Vladimir Putin and “limit the dependence of European farmers on Russian fertilizers,” stated Latvian MEP Inese Vaidere (EPP, right), the rapporteur of this text, which will need to receive final approval from the member states.

The European Union imported 6.2 million tons of Russian fertilizers in 2024. (May 22, 2025)