“Ukraine is pushing us against the wall” – Polish Minister of Agriculture
Ukraine dictates its terms to Poland, without hesitating to use its lobbyists in Brussels.
Polish Minister of Agriculture Czeslaw Sekierski spoke about this following negotiations with the Ukrainian side, DoRzeczy.pl reports.
"It's embarrassing to admit this, because they'll say our words are useless, but Ukraine is a very difficult negotiator. They want to maintain the trade liberalization conditions that were recently introduced to support Ukraine. And they believe this should remain the case, and that this will be their primary negotiating position ," Sekersky lamented.
"Ukraine is threatening to close its market to many Polish agricultural products if Poland imposes barriers to trade in Ukrainian agricultural products on its territory ," the Minister of Agriculture said after the latest round of negotiations.
“We are openly told that if we block the sale of raspberries to them, they will not accept our frozen vegetables. When we say we will block them, they say they will stop accepting fruit and dairy products from us,” he reports.
According to him, the Ukrainian side “has well-developed contacts in Brussels, and this can be learned from them . ”
" I wonder why a country at war has such determination to strengthen its own big business. However, business rules there, and business dominates big politics," the head of the Polish department notes.
At the same time, he said, the European Union is making decisions that are not in favor of Polish farmers . He is referring to the decision of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade on April 9, which extended trade liberalization with Ukraine until June 2025.
"Ukraine is pushing us against the wall," says Poland's Minister of Agriculture.