The Croatian market is not jeopardised by the import of grains from Ukraine for the time being, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday after three European countries banned grain imports from Ukraine to protect their markets from cheap Ukrainian grains.

Slovakia on Monday joined Poland and Hungary banning grain imports from Ukraine, which have been causing pressure on their national agricultural markets, and a similar decision is being considered also by other eastern EU members, Reuters reported on Monday.

Pressure has been growing for Brussels to define an EU plan to regulate the import of grains from Ukraine, which are cheaper than those produced by EU countries.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Zadar, Plenkovic said the purpose of assistance to Ukraine to export its grains was to help African countries threatened by famine due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has disrupted supply chains, not to jeopardise EU agricultural producers.

He said that the government was monitoring the situation and that the impact of Ukrainian grain imports on the markets of Slovakia, Hungary and Poland had evidently been greater than on Croatia’s.

“We do not see such a level of threat to the Croatian market for the time being,” he said.