The EU is fully supporting the Black Sea Grain Initiative to move grain out of Ukraine, and wants to see it extended, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said.
President von der Leyen was speaking at the first day of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, where she addressed two of the most pressing issues arising out of the war in Ukraine, namely food security and energy security.
She called on the G20 to work together to address the “global consequences” of the war.
The G20 is a group of the world’s largest economies, including the EU. Russia is also a member, and despite calls for it to be excluded from this year’s summit, a Russian delegation did in fact make the trip to Indonesia (though its president, Vladimir Putin, will not attend, unlike leaders of the other countries).
Speaking today (Tuesday, November 15), president von der Leyen said that the EU is “doing its utmost to alleviate the situation”.
“Just to set the record straight again, there are no sanctions on agri-food products and fertilisers,” she remarked.
The commission president added: “We fully support the Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered by [UN secretary general Antonio Guterres] and [Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan]. It needs to be extended.
“In addition, in the EU, we set up alternative transport routes to bring agri-food products out of Ukraine, which we call solidarity lanes. Since May, more than 15 million tonnes have been exported through these routes and we are further increasing their capacity.”
She added that the EU will be mobilising €8 billion over the next three years to aid global food security by increasing local production.
President von der Leyen went on to say that the EU is working with countries in Africa and the Caribbean on “innovation to develop the next generation of fertilisers”.
On the issue of the energy crisis, the commission president said that the war in Ukraine “was an eye-opener” for the EU.
According to von der Leyen, Russia is flaring gas – or burning it off – rather than selling it, which she says tightens the global enegy market and “leads to skyrocketing prices”.
She said the commission is supporting the introduction of an oil price cap.
“Our best response to this is to speed up the transition towards clean energy. Clean energy is the only answer to both the energy crisis and the climate crisis,” von der Leyen commented.
“In the next five years alone Europe will invest at least €4 billion in renewable energy, like hydrogen, through our ‘Global Gateway’ investment strategy,” she said.