EU Calls for Black Sea Attack Moratorium to Avert Global Food Crisis

EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas has called for a moratorium on attacks in the Black Sea to restore safe navigation and allow Ukraine's grain exports to reach global markets.

The EU official made this call at a UN General Assembly side event co-chaired with the foreign ministers of France, Romania, and Ukraine. Since June, Russia has systematically struck Ukrainian ports, grain terminals, and commercial cargo ships in the Black Sea, killing crew members and crippling the export corridor that carries the bulk of Ukraine's agricultural output.

The attacks have disrupted global food supply chains and pushed the Black Sea toward a crisis the EU warned could surpass the 2022 grain-price shock. Kallas stated that 'food must never be used as a weapon in the Black Sea or anywhere else.' She added, 'Wars make affordable food disappear from dinner tables of millions of people around the globe.'

The EU official proposed a new 'Black Sea grain arrangement,' separate from the 2022 deal brokered by Türkiye and the United Nations that Russia left in July 2023. The current situation has led to higher costs for wheat imports, with Egypt shifting some purchases away from Russia and Ukraine.