EU trade with Russia Agricultural products

The 1997 bilateral partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA) is the general framework for EU-Russia trade relations. Negotiations for a new EU-Russia agreement, initiated in 2008, were suspended in 2014 owing to the first Ukraine crisis. In 2012, Russia joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), and EU-Russia trade relations have since been defined by the multilateral WTO rules. Since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in March 2014, the EU has progressively imposed restrictive measures towards Russia; these led in the same year, as retaliation, to a Russian ban on selected agricultural products from the EU and some third countries, namely Australia, Canada, Norway and the United States. Although overall EU trade with Russia has continued, and even increased, from 2017 onwards, trade flows in agri-food products have decreased, as shown in Figure 2. On 24 February 2022, Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine, followed by a full-scale invasion. EU countries have since adopted unprecedentedly tough sanctions.