Ukrainian grain transit via seaports of Lithuania and other Baltic countries may become regular, which would require additional investments in infrastructure, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte told the BNS news agency.

Lithuania is promoting the idea of exporting Ukrainian grain via Baltic ports and specifically, Klaipeda. Vilnius argues that ports in the Baltic states can handle up to 25 million tonnes of grain annually. At the same time, inspections at the ports themselves, and not at the Polish-Ukrainian border, will make export easier, Vilnius says. In late July, three Lithuanian ministers called on the European Commission to create incentives for increasing grain transit via Baltic countries. Such shipments are now complicated by restrictions on the part of Poland, which fears that Ukrainian products will enter the local market and cause damage to Polish farmers.

Warsaw's fears are unfounded, because when it comes to transit shipments of grain, the commodity does not get to the European Union market and thus has no impact on prices there, Simonyte said.

"This transit of grain will never affect the domestic market, as this is transit to a port, and it won't have any impact on trade inside of the EU, nor will it increase supply or affect prices," she said.

"It can be assumed that the domestic discussion is so heated, considering the calendar of elections in Poland, that perhaps, the government is hesitant to take any quicker steps for political reasons, because there are not many practical problems why we cannot do this," she said.

Even if Poland agreed to move the inspection of Ukrainian grain cargoes to ports in Baltic countries, the ports' capacity would not be sufficient to meet all the demand for such transit, she said.

"Looking further ahead, given that Ukraine will probably need this support with serious investments for a long time, the Council of Europe Development Bank could at least partially assume responsibility for them. With these investments, with an acceleration of the processes [of building European gauge railroads as part of] Rail Baltica, Lithuania's ability [to be a transit country for Ukrainian grain] would be much higher," she said.

"So, the question is what in particular we want to solve. Do we want to solve the immediate issue right now, when there are physical limitations anyway in how we can we help, or do we really want to create a sustainable transit corridor, which will require some more serious investments than procedural ones?" Simonyte said.

For many years, Ukraine exported most of its grain and other agriculture products from its own Black Sea ports. However, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, the work of the ports was limited severely. Export flows have since been largely redirected to Europe.

The Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA) estimates that Ukraine may export almost 48 million tonnes of grain in the new 2023-2024 season, while Ukrainian grain exports reached 58 million tonnes in the last season that ended on June 30.