Page 38 - Ukraine OUTLOOK 2025

As bne IntelliNews reported, Ukraine can’t join the EU until the Common Agricultural Policy is reformed. Its agricultural sector is simply so huge that it would eat up hundreds of billions of euros in subsidies and bankrupt the EU budget; fully a third of EU spending goes on agricultural subsidies.
Christoph Hansen from Luxembourg has become the new European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food. Hansen comes from a family that owns a large farm in Luxembourg. Hansen has been working in the European Parliament since 2018. During the parliament's introduction of the candidate for the post of Agricultural Commissioner, Christoph Hansen assessed Ukraine as the "elephant in the room" regarding its impact on EU agriculture.
"The solidarity that the EU has towards Ukraine is not something we should take for granted. We do not need to cause damage to our agricultural sector due to the accession of another country or other countries."
He also promised to equalise subsidies for farmers from eastern and western EU member states. Now, countries contributing more to the EU budget will receive more subsidies. The EU provides €60bn per year in agricultural subsidies.
• 6.3 Construction & Real Estate
Trends in the Ukrainian residential real estate market in 2024. The total area of residential buildings for which construction permits were issued (new construction) decreased by 6.6% in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period in 2023, to 2.962mn square metres. The total area of new construction of apartment buildings reduced by 8.3% to 2.8mn square metres. The number of apartments declared at the start of construction decreased by 12.2% and amounted to 30,900. The largest number of new housing units was
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