The IFA has written to the European Commission asking it to speed up its review of anti-dumping duties on Russian fertiliser.

“We strictly adhered to the timeline of the review,” the organisation’s Brussels director Liam McHale said in a letter to European Commission trade official Helene Juramy.

“Much to our surprise, Fertilizers Europe has not complied with your deadlines.”

McHale said that Fertilizers Europe, which is arguing for retention of the duties on imported nitrogen fertiliser, “seem to be operating to their own time schedule”.

He said: “They submit confusing and unsubstantiated information at the last minute in an effort to sway the Commission’s opinion and delay the process.”

Review

The review began in August 2017 and a preliminary finding by the Commission was expected by last month. However, at the latest hearing in Brussels on the case, the European Commission indicated to IFA that the preliminary findings would not happen before the end of May.

“Fertilizers Europe has decades of experience in dealing with anti-dumping cases and their behaviour shows a complete disregard to the process,” McHale wrote. “We would therefore be grateful if the Commission could disregard the unacceptably late submissions from Fertilizers Europe as being out of deadline.”

The review is examining the €47/t anti-dumping duty on Russian ammonium nitrate which is used in Ireland as CAN. Scrapping the duty could save Irish farmers about €38/t for CAN, if the full saving was passed back.

The review was launched after a complaint was lodged by a number of EU farm organisations led by IFA showing that EU duties and tariffs were costing EU farmers close to €1bn each year and Irish farmers €36m.