Protesting Polish farmers block a large part of Ukraine's western border
As the war raged in eastern Ukraine, much of the western border was blocked by new fighting on Tuesday, this time involving Polish farmers.
The farmers have been protesting for months against the influx of Ukrainian products, which they say is crowding out the Polish market and undermining their livelihoods. On Tuesday, they blocked checkpoints for commercial transport, stopped the passage of about 3,000 Ukrainian trucks and opened some train cars carrying Ukrainian grain, causing it to spill onto the rails.
“It's us or them,” a Polish farmer said on Polish TV channel Polsat News on Tuesday. “Someone must be interested in us.”
The demonstration sparked a counter-protest in Ukraine, where previous blockades by Polish truckers have hampered the supply chain of goods reaching the country, causing shortages that are beginning to affect soldiers on the battlefield.
Oleh Nikolenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said the protests “undermine the Ukrainian economy and its resilience to fend off Russian aggression.”
Tuesday's protests echoed those of other farmers across Europe in recent months, who complained about the European Union's environmental rules and imports that farmers said were making it difficult to make a living.
The problems with Polish farmers arose after the Russian invasion of Ukraine limited maritime transport from Ukrainian ports. To ease price increases and grain shortages in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, the European Union has suspended tariffs and quotas on Ukrainian food products to move as much food as possible by rail and truck through neighboring countries such as Hungary and Poland. , Romania and Slovakia.
To some extent the plan worked, but some of the Ukrainian grain also reached local markets in the countries it was supposed to pass through, creating tensions with local farmers who claimed the influx was pushing down prices.
Before his government was overthrown in elections last October, Poland's former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki imposed a unilateral ban on Ukrainian grain and some other agricultural imports in violation of European Union rules. The new government led by Donald Tusk has maintained a ban on the import of many products, including sunflower and wheat flour. The agriculture minister said on Tuesday that Poland is working on a bilateral agreement with Ukraine to extend protection to other goods such as sugar, poultry and eggs.
The Ukrainian government said that in January most of Ukraine's agricultural exports were transported by sea, with only about 5 percent of the total passing through Poland.
“This shows that the claims of Polish agricultural associations about the oversaturation of their market are unfair,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine's Minister of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, said in a statement.
But some signs attached to the protesting trucks on Tuesday also included swear words against Ukrainian refugees, and Ukrainian officials said the blockade was instigated by far-right political figures.
“The problem is not with grain, but rather with politics,” Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
In recent months, Polish truck drivers have also blocked major crossings due to declining competition from Ukrainian truckers, who are not subject to the same working hours and wage rules as EU drivers. The Polish drivers have demanded that Brussels reintroduce the licensing system for Ukrainian truck drivers, which was abolished after the Russian invasion.
Edward Lucas, a senior adviser at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said that while the far right might be willing to exploit the protest to stoke anti-Ukrainian sentiment, the farmers' grievances were legitimate and that Polish and European authorities should do that. must be addressed before they escalate into broader tensions.
“There is a risk that this is going to become geopolitically significant,” Mr. Lucas said, adding that Polish politicians “have allowed this to fester to the point where people are really quite angry.”