Poland blocks Ukrainian wheat: “It also comes from Russia”

It is the EU country that struggled the most to support Kiev after the Russian invasion. But solidarity has found a seemingly insurmountable limit: wheat. After strong protests from farmers and a political earthquake that hit the government, Poland decided to put pressure on grain imports from Ukraine.

The announcement came from Warsaw’s new agriculture minister, Robert Telus, who replaced Henryk Kowalczyk, who resigned after fierce protests estimated losses of nearly 2 billion euros due to so-called “solidarity lanes” set up by the country’s farms. The EU’s promotion of overland exports of wheat, corn and other grains from Ukraine to Europe, thereby circumventing the blockade of ships in the Black Sea. These strips caused protests not only from Polish farmers, but also from Romanian and Bulgarian farmers. The European Commission has tried to calm morale by allocating 56m euros, but promises of help have not worked, at least so far.

Stuck between the image of Kiev as its main EU ally and the poll response from the majority party, Polish Pis, the issue has become murky in Warsaw. There will be general elections next fall, and Pis, Fdi’s right-wing ally in Europe, cannot give up the support of the rural population, which makes up a significant part of its electorate. Even more so, given that Michał Kołodziejczak, the founder of AgroUnia, the largest Polish local producers’ movement, wanted to emulate the Dutch BBB, the farmers’ party that surprisingly won the last local elections in the Netherlands.

Touching the heart of his populism, Pis reacted by sacrificing Kowalczyk and bringing Telus into the fray. Kim immediately tried to return the hot potato to the EU: “Brussels talks about sanctions against Russia and on the other hand pretends not to know that there is a lot of wheat coming to Europe from the south and that it is probably Russian, not Ukrainian.” The Polish minister described the EU’s action as “too slow” and warned that “European farmers and above all two or three countries cannot be paying the price due to poor coordination”. Too bad European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski is not only Polish in Brussels and is also one of the leading advocates of his own party, Pis.

For now, Telus has announced a tightening of imports. According to the news from Warsaw, wheat purchases from Ukraine will be temporarily suspended in accordance with the agreement with Kiev. For the future, “every new shipment will be checked very carefully from now on, although this is not the intention to cut imports,” the new minister assured. Polish farmers’ associations argue that goods from Ukraine do not have the “same density or quality” required by local producers and that they are charging 50% customs duty on Ukrainian wheat, which they say 2.5 million tons is stored in Poland.

Source: Today IT

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